


The Wolf Must Hunt

by Uratha



Series: Route 666: The Road to a Cure [1]
Category: Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Multi, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-17 22:51:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 35,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3546713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uratha/pseuds/Uratha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Winchester Brothers cross paths with a werewolf named Deucalion, they quickly learn that their understanding of werewolves is woefully lacking.  Their quest for answers brings them to Beacon Hills, where they will find themselves in the middle of a war with only more questions.  As werewolves and Hunters work together, long-buried secrets will be unearthed and the dynamics of both groups will be left forever changed as a result.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Forget Everything You Think You Know

As they walked into the crappy hotel room, like so many others they had stayed in over the years, Sam immediately rushed over to his laptop, while Dean leisurely strolled over to the mini-fridge and grabbed a beer. Popping the top of it, he took a drink and offered a sigh of refreshment. “Well, it was a good run, Sammy,” he offered.

“How can you be so calm about this?” Sam asked, typing frantically, even as blood from his forearm dripped onto the keys. “You were bitten.”

Dean shrugged. “Occupational hazards. Almost funny that after all these years of hunting monsters, now I’m going to become one. I, for one, am not going to let that happen. I’ve been a vampire and a demon, and that whole overwhelming bloodlust controlling your every waking thought? Yeah, that’s not going to be me. You do your Google Fu, and if you don’t come up with something, I’m putting a silver round right here,” he said, pointing to his temple with the “barrel” of the gun he made with his hand.

“That’s not going to happen,” Sam told him assuredly as he searched through every lore on werewolves he could find. Madison was a long time ago, and now they had Garth on the inside to help them shore up some of the more obscure stuff. _Garth!_ Pulling out his phone, he dialed the other hunter… and that’s when Dean saw it.

Slamming his bottle onto the table, he rushed over to his brother’s side. “Son of a bitch!” he shouted. “Why didn’t you tell me, Sammy?”

“Not so willing to go gentle into that good night since you’re not going alone?” Sam chided, his expression one of dismissive concentration.

Dean’s scowl in return made it clear that he was neither amused nor finished. He just happened to hear Garth’s voice as he was about to protest. _“Hiya, Sam. What’s up?”_

“Not a social call, I’m afraid,” Sam explained. “Dean and I have been hunting this killer werewolf. We thought because of when he went after him, we were good, but he shifted into some kind of wolf-man hybrid. Not Lon Chaney style, but not like anything I’ve ever seen.”

Garth’s voice was calm. _“Okay, so send me what you’ve got, and I’ll take a look. I should be able to get to it this evening and give you a call back in the morning.”_

Dean grabbed the phone from his brother, put it on speaker, and held it between them. “You don’t understand, Garth. Sammy’s been bit,” he told him, the concern readily apparent.

“We _both_ were,” Sam added, angry at his brother’s dismissal of his own predicament.

Dead silence on the other end. _“Oh,”_ he finally said simply. _“Start at the beginning.”_

And so they did. A rash of unexplained killings that, upon closer inspection, seemed to be a werewolf turf war. Most of the victims were werewolves, and Dean had been happy to leave well enough alone until some civilians were caught in the crossfire. The heavy hitter in all of this was someone called the Demon-Wolf.

_“The Demon-Wolf?”_

The brothers looked at one another. “Yeah. What of it?” they asked in unison.

 _“Decent-looking. Maybe 30s, maybe 40s—hard to tell. Brownish hair?”_ Garth asked.

Sam’s curiosity was piqued. “Yeah, that’s him,” he nodded, out of reflex.

“At least until he semi-wolfed on us and got all scary gray. His eyes were some creepy ass red when he did,” Dean cut in.

 _“I’ve heard of that guy. He’s like an urban legend—a boogeyman among werewolves. They call him Deucalion,”_ Garth explained.

Dean absentmindedly motioned with his hand as if to say “Keep talking.” Sam could see the building agitation in his brother’s demeanor. “What else can you tell us?” the younger Winchester asked.

_“Nothing.”_

Dean’s face contorted into a strange mask combining incredulity and rage. “What do you mean ‘nothing’?”

 _“I mean, that’s all I know,”_ Garth admitted.

Sam sighed. “Thanks Garth. It’s a start. I’ll call you back if we get anything else.”

_“Sounds good. Let me know if there’s anything I can do on my end.”_

Ending the call, Sam was lost in thought. Dean was shouting and cursing at God, Garth, and everyone in between.

“Remember, Garth has something of a handle on his urges,” Sam reminded his brother. “You saw the way this Demon-Wolf changed. He was 100% in the driver’s seat. We need to figure out how. If we’re going Universal with this, I’ll be damned if we’re going Dark Side, too.”

Dean seemed to calm slightly. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“First off, we need an expert,” Sam told him.

That answer didn’t sit well with the elder Winchester. “You just hung up on him, Einstein.”

Sam shook his head. “No. Not someone who became a werewolf. We need someone a little higher up the food chain.”

“Like an Alpha?” Dean asked, his eyebrow raised in confusion. “We’ve never crossed paths with him. Wouldn’t have a clue where to start looking, and that’s even assuming that it is a him.”

Sam shook his head again. “Not an Alpha… a Pureblood. They have more control.”

Dean nodded in understanding. “Someone who might actually talk to us? Like the girl in Chicago? The one in love with the shapeshifter.”

“That’s the one,” Sam affirmed. “Violet Duval.”

Dean smirked. “Showoff. If you remember her name, genius, how about coming up with a phone number?”

When Sam looked through his contacts for a number, Dean was about to be super-impressed. Instead, he was confused when a man’s voice answered. _“Yeah?”_

“Ennis. It’s Sam Winchester. My brother and I need your help. Can you put us in touch with David’s girlfriend?”

The other hunter seemed curious, but he didn’t press the issue. _“Sure. I’m sending you their contact info now. Anything I can help with?”_ he asked, knowing that the two veterans wouldn’t be seeking out a werewolf if it weren’t serious.

“Not at the moment,” Sam assured him, “but I’ll let you know. Thanks.”

As soon as he had it on the screen, they called the number. _“Hello?”_

“Violet, this is Dean Winchester,” Dean abruptly cut in. He was growing impatient and didn’t want his brother wasting time on pleasantries. “Sam and I have been bitten by a werewolf that changed at will. We’ve got it on good authority that he’s called Deucalion.”

After a moment of reticence—likely due to processing the abundance of information thrown at her at once—Violet eventually responded. _“The Demon-Wolf,”_ she told them, confirming his identity. _“He’s the Alpha of an all Alpha pack, or at least he was.”_

Both Winchesters were thoroughly confused. “What do you mean, Alpha? There’s only one Alpha,” Dean protested.

 _“In the sense you mean, yes,”_ she agreed before explaining. _“There is_ the _Alpha of werewolves I suppose, but that’s almost an old wives tale to us, as none have ever met them. It’s complicated to explain, but those that the Alpha creates personally and four generations after have complete control over their transformation. We call them Alphas as well because they can deliberately create other werewolves as well, called Betas. Betas can’t create new werewolves.”_

Sam struggled to follow. “I don’t understand. We’ve hunted werewolves that have been created by accident—a scratch, a bite.”

_“It’s a generational thing. Betas belong to a pack. They cannot create new werewolves. When a Beta leaves a pack, though, they are called Omegas. Werewolves, like regular wolves, are social creatures. Without a pack, an Omega slowly goes mad. Once that madness sets in, they lose the ability to control their shift, and they become tied to lunar phases because of the effect that the moon has upon us.”_

“That doesn’t explain the werewolves we’ve encountered,” Dean grunted.

 _“Once the madness has set in,”_ Violet continued, _“the only thing that can cure it is by becoming part of a pack.”_

Sam nodded in understanding to his brother, adding his own explanation. “So there’s a biological change in an Omega. To try to cure itself, its attacks evolve to where they can create new werewolves.”

 _“Exactly,”_ she explained. _“There’s something you should know about the lesser Alphas, though. Few were created by the First Alpha anymore. As long as Pureblood mates with Pureblood, though, their offspring are just as powerful and capable as those that came before. A Beta can become an Alpha by killing one, though. That’s why Deucalion is so dangerous: a werewolf grows in power in one of two ways. They can increase the size of their pack, or they can kill other werewolves and take their power.”_

Sam looked at his brother. “That explains what put us on his tail. He’s been leaving a trail of bodies across the country.”

_“He’s amassing power again. He slaughtered his entire pack and then swelled the ranks of a new pack composed of nothing but Alphas, each having killed their own packs as sort of a rite of passage.”_

Dean’s brow furrowed. “If he’s already top dog—sorry,” he smiled, “why the power play?”

_“I’ve heard that his pack was wiped out, and he was run out of town by another pack.”_

Sam grew pensive. “That doesn’t sound encouraging.”

_“I don’t really know all the details, but if anyone would, the pack emissary might.”_

Dean’s expression was one of pure exasperation. “What? Why is this the first we’re hearing of such a thing?”

 _“Because you tend to kill first and ask questions never,”_ Violet replied calmly. _“Nearly all packs have them. They watch over us and guide us. The emissaries are druids, acting in every capacity from lore keeper to doctor. If anyone would know how to help you control the transformation that_ will _be coming for you on the next full moon, it’s an emissary.”_

“Not to sound all negative Nancy,” Dean grumbled, “but how do you expect an emissary to help us control this when you can’t control yourself, and you’re a Pureblood, right? I mean, you’re not an Alpha but you don’t go full-on Darth Rosenberg without remembering it.”

“DEAN!” Sam protested.

 _“It’s okay, Sam,”_ Violet assured him. _“It’s a valid question. It’s actually because our emissary was killed. It unbalances us. In Julian’s case, it made him a homicidal megalomaniac. In my case, because females are more closely tied to lunar effects, I lost the degree of control I once possessed.”_

“So what do you suggest?” Sam asked her.

_“Find the pack that was able to stand against Deucalion. Powerful packs have powerful emissaries. Supposedly, all of this went down in Beacon Hills, California. That’s the Hale pack. Talk to their Alpha, Laura.”_

“Thanks, Violet,” Sam told her even as Dean was flipping through their father’s journal. Once he hung up, he looked at his brother quizzically. “What is it?”

Thumbing the pages, the elder Winchester didn’t even look up. “Beacon Hills. I remember that name. Dad and I went there before. There was a Hunter family there,” he explained. He finally exclaimed, “Ha! I thought so. The Argents. The old man was Gerard… a big-time dick. Made our grandfather seem like Mary Poppins. The son was quite a bit older than me. If I’m being honest, he was so good, he intimidated me. The daughter was your age. Too young for me at the time, but even then, I could tell she was gonna be a looker. Something about her seemed dangerous, in a boiling rabbits kind of way.”

“Okay, how does this help us?” Sam asked. “You think they’re still there? What are we supposed to tell them, anyway? We’re about to become werewolves, could you help us out without killing us?”

Dean rolled his eyes. The sarcasm was usually his shtick, and he was firing up what he hoped would be some scathing retort when his shoulders fell. “Shit.”

Sam sat there for a moment, patiently waiting for an answer. Finally, he interrupted his brother’s thoughts and reading. “Well?”

“Apparently, the Argents are like Hunter legends for hunting one particular type of monster. I’ll give you three guesses, but the first two don’t count,” Dean smirked.

All Sam could say was “Shit.”

“Tell me about it. See what you can find out about this Laura Hale,” Dean said, closing the journal.

It took a few minutes, but once again, all Sam could say was “Shit.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Now what? The Argents killed her?”

“No,” Sam said, before amending his answer. “I don’t know. Maybe? Probably?” He continued reading. “Make that definitely. Mysterious fire. Almost the entire family was killed. She survived, but almost five years ago, according to these private files I hacked from the Sheriff’s Office, she was cut in half and … the Hell?”

Dean was confused. “What is it?”

“Somebody just shut me out,” he explained.

“Wait, somebody hacked your hack?” Dean asked.

Sam nodded. “So it would seem. Someone is good, damned good.”

Dean roared in frustration. Finally settling into an exasperated sigh, something clicked. “You say _almost_ the entire family. Did you see anything about other survivors?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, following his train of thought. “By my best guess, three. It gets confusing. I saw a younger sister, Cora, presumed dead but in Beacon Hills not too long ago. Her current whereabouts are unknown. I saw an uncle, Peter, who was listed as dead, but just a few months ago was committed to a local sanitarium named Eichen House.”

Dean nodded. “Believed dead but miraculously survived a fatal fire? Definitely sounds werewolf-y.   Who’s the third?”

“A younger brother, Derek. As near as I can tell, he lives in Beacon Hills, but otherwise, he moves around as much as we do. Multiple addresses now vacant, gaps between addresses,” Sam explained. “That’s all I’m going to be able to find out from here.”

Already shoving things into his duffel, Dean smiled. “Then what are we waiting for? California, here we come.”


	2. Unfamiliar Territory

When Deputy Parrish felt eyes upon him, he looked up from his desk where his eyes had been focused on paperwork. He saw two men in the cheap suits that screamed “Federal Agents”, so he was less than surprised when they proffered FBI credentials. Something didn’t fit to him, though. The taller one (and damn, was he tall!) had hair that was so far from regulation that it seemed laughable, and the demeanor both wore was one of a self-assuredness that he rarely saw outside the military. The men seemed knowledgeable and skilled, and they knew how to do it without a chain of command or regulations. No, not military, though the discipline was right for it. Realizing he was staring, he smiled apologetically. “Can I help you, Agents?”

“Agent Summers,” Dean introduced himself before pointing at his brother. “This is Agent Copeland. We need to see the sheriff.”

Jordan quirked an eyebrow. “Summers and Copeland? All you’re missing now is Sumner, and you could be the Police. Gotta appreciate the irony,” he chuckled as Dean scowled at his brother. “Hold on one minute. Let me see if Sheriff Stilinksi is available.”

“The guy’s sharp,” Sam said. “I can tell he knows we’re not Feds. I could see it in his eyes when he was giving us the once-over.”

Dean nodded. “I got that, too. He’s also ex-military. You can tell it in his stance and movements. Not really keen on someone that smart having the tools to back it up when we’re here under false pretense.”

They didn’t have time to discuss the matter further before Parrish returned with the obvious sheriff. “Come on back, fellas,” the new face told them.

 

“I’m Sheriff Stilinksi. What can I do for you?” he asked.

Dean shook his hand first and took lead on speaking. “We’re actually looking for your locals. We have reason to believe he might have information that can help us on a related case.”

The Sheriff furrowed his brow appraisingly. “Who’s that?”

“Derek Hale,” Sam answered, immediately noticing the older man’s reticence. “It’s about an arson-murder that we’re looking into a few states over that seems to be part of a pattern. There’s some similarities in the fire that claimed the lives of his family. Any idea how we can get in touch with him? We’ve been trying to pinpoint a way to do so, but the address the DMV lists is a loft that looks abandoned.”

The Sheriff seemed hesitant. “Derek’s had a few run-ins with us in the past, but he’s been cleared of everything and really done a lot for this town. More than most could imagine. He’s had a lot of shit handed to him in his life, but he’s come out of it as a young man that I think a lot of. I won’t have you causing trouble for him.”

Dean bristled and started to say something, but Sam cut in first, obviously aware of how the gears in his brother’s head were turning. “Sheriff, I assure you. We’re only looking for Derek for his help. Nothing else. We’re not here to make things hard on anyone.”

Sheriff Stilinski sat there, staring at them, long enough for Dean to become increasingly uncomfortable. To his credit, though, Sam was coming off like an open book. It was for that reason alone that the Sheriff finally nodded. “I think I’ve got a number you can reach him at,” he told the Winchesters. “Give me a couple of minutes to find it.”

When the Sheriff left, the brothers stared at one another when he did so leaving his laptop on the desk. Both looked over their shoulders to see him and the Deputy they had met earlier walking over to a set of file cabinets. Sam quickly moved behind the screen and made a few rapid keystrokes to circumvent the password. He found everything he could about the Hales, especially Derek, and shot the documents to his email before wiping traces of his handiwork and sitting back down.

Outside, the Sheriff looked at Parrish. “They done yet?” he asked Jordan.

“Yes, sir,” the Deputy said, stealing a quick glance.

Grabbing the file, he quickly scribbled a phone number from his own contact list onto one of the newer documents in the “clean” record for Derek Hale. Closing it, he tucked it under his arm and closed the drawer. Rejoining the “Agents”, he produced the piece of paper. “I’m not sure how current it is, but check back with me if you have any problems.”

Sam quickly copied the number and stood, offering his hand. “Thank you, Sheriff. We really appreciate the help.”

“I hope Derek can help you with your investigation,” the Sheriff smiled, returning the gesture.

Dean followed suit. “So do we. You have no idea. Thanks.”

The Sheriff led the men out of the station, motioning for Jordan to follow. Once he did, he shut the door behind him before another door opened and two teenagers stepped out. “Well?” the Sheriff asked.

“The tall one was telling the truth,” Malia told him. “I was listening extra careful when he said they just wanted Derek’s help. Breathing and heart rate were completely normal. The other one definitely smelled like aggression, but it seemed like impatience and fear, not hostility.”

Stiles nodded. “And the password work? Definitely the same guy. I’m not in Danny’s league, but I laid enough of a maze that I recognize the handiwork.”

The Sheriff exhaled sharply. “I got the sense they were on the level, but I’m glad for the confirmation. Glad I saw the car on a traffic cam and called you before they got here. I saw mention of it in a report years ago, and there’s not a lot of pristine ’67 black Chevy Impalas with spotlights on the road.”

“So what now?” Parrish asked.

The Sheriff shrugged. “It’s in Derek’s hands now. Like I said, I had a gut feeling. The number I gave them was Braeden’s burner.”

Stiles smiled.

“What?” his father asked.

Stiles shook his head. “If I didn’t know better, those glowing terms would have me convinced. Sounds like old Sourwolf is growing on you.”

Sheriff Stilinksi grunted at his son and girlfriend. “Go back to school… both of you.”

 

“Get the feeling the pretty-boy Deputy wasn’t the only one sizing us up?” Dean asked, walking to the car.

Sam nodded. “Definitely. The Sheriff was definitely feeling us out, and we were being watched. The door behind him was cracked enough I could see shadows moving behind it.”

“Why didn’t you signal me?” Dean scowled.

The younger Winchester shrugged. “No need in hiding the broad reason we’re looking for Hale—we _do_ need his help. The guy was clearly circling the wagons around Derek, so I wanted him to trust us. You getting antsy would not help that.”

Reluctantly the elder Winchester accepted his reasoning.   “So now what?”

“Now we see if we earned that trust,” Sam said, leaning onto the roof and dialing the number. He put it on speaker.

A woman’s voice answered. _“Who is this?”_

“Who is this?” Dean immediately countered, earning an exasperated glare from his brother.

Feeling an inevitable stalemate coming, Sam jumped in quickly. “We’re looking for Derek Hale. We need his help.”

_“How did you get this number?”_

“Sheriff Stilinski gave it to us,” Dean replied.

_“I’ll call you right back,”_ was all she said before hanging up. The recoil from Dean almost made his younger brother laugh.

“What are you smirking at?” Dean demanded. “Now what? Our only lead just hung up on us.”

Sam shook his head. “Right now, the woman or Derek or both are calling the Sheriff to make sure he’s okay and that he didn’t give us the number under duress.”

Dean considered it a moment and nodded. His brother was right. If there was any doubt, the phone rang barely a minute later. Sam hit answer and put it on speakerphone. “Hello?”

_“This is Derek Hale? Is this Agents Copeland and Summers?”_ a male voice asked.

Sam took point again. “Actually, my name is Sam Winchester. I’m here with my brother Dean. The FBI thing was a ruse to get the sheriff to help us get in contact with you. We need your help.”

_“Sheriff Stilinski said as much. He also said I could trust you, so what’s this about?”_

Dean cut in. “Can you talk freely?”

_“Yes.”_ The answer was short and to the point.

“We were attacked by a werewolf name Deucalion. We...,” Sam began before being cut off by Derek. _“I’m on my way back to Beacon Hills right now. I’ll call when I get there.”_

An audible click clearly indicated that the conversation was over.


	3. A Meeting of the Minds

When they pulled up to the apartment building, they saw several vehicles, and Dean grunted, chambering a round into his Colt. “This could get messy with this many people living in the building.”

“DEAN!” Sam scolded. “First of all, we’re here to ask this guy’s help. Secondly, take a closer look. The only lights on in the place are in that one apartment. The disruptions in the light coming through the window….”

Dean nodded, mentally chastising himself as he replaced the bullet into his clip, stepping out of the car and sliding the gun into the waist of his jeans behind his back. “You’re right,” he admitted reluctantly. “All of the bodies are up there.”

“Really?” Sam asked. “That’s your choice of wording?”

The elder Winchester just grinned at his brother. “Love me as I am.”

The younger Winchester just rolled his eyes.

 

When the Hunters got inside, they were surprised by what greeted them. The Sheriff and Deputy were there, along with a guy they were absolutely certain was Derek Hale (because he looked exactly like he sounded). In addition, there were more than a half-dozen teenagers.

Derek wasted no time in speaking. “You mentioned you were attacked by Deucalion. How did you cross paths with him, and how did you survive?”

Dean’s brain was already trying to formulate a plausible lie, but his Boy Scout brother chimed in first. “We’re Hunters,” Sam said.

Derek nodded. “Thanks for the honesty. Stiles?”

One of the teenagers, a couple of inches shorter than Dean and possessed of a sort of gangly awkwardness that seemed on the verge of disappearing, turned a laptop towards them. The camera light was on, and the video chat window showed a face the older brother hadn’t seen in a long time.

“Heya, Chris,” Dean smiled. “Long time, no see.”

Sam watched the exchange in silence, having only heard the man’s name, and even that, very recently.

“Dean Winchester. It’s been a while. Twenty years?” Chris Argent asked.

Dean nodded. “Twenty-one, to be exact. How’s Gerard?”

“Debilitated and dying a death he’s richly earned. How’s John?”

Sam appreciated the man’s candor. It elicited an equal level out of his brother. “Sold his soul to a Crossroads Demon to bring me back from the dead.”

“That’s the life. It’s why I’ve had to bury a wife and a daughter and I’m currently hunting my homicidal sister,” Chris told him frankly. The whole discussion seemed like it should be more private, and almost everyone was visibly uncomfortable. “That’s the little brother?”

Said little brother nodded. “I’m Sam. Nice to meet you, Chris.”

“No offense, but your sister seemed off her rocker even then,” Dean said flatly.

Chris smiled. “Wish you would have told me that then. It would have saved me a lot of grief.”

“You and me both,” Derek muttered under his breath.

“Nice to meet you, Sam,” Chris said. “They’re on the level, Derek. I’ll vouch for them.”

Derek nodded to the camera. “Thanks, Chris,” he said before closing the laptop. “Okay, so Deucalion attacked you. I don’t see any black ooze coming out of your orifices, so you’re not going to die from it. That does mean you’ll turn on the next full….”

The former Alpha stopped and moved closer to the pair appraisingly, his eyes glowing a brilliant blue. “Scott,” he said to one boy, who stepped up to join them.

“Look, not that it’s my place to tell you how to do things, but what’s with all the kids?” Dean asked, the last word falling away as Scott’s eyes burned red.

Sam was amazed. A werewolf? That young? Everyone seemed at ease around one another. “Are all of you…?”

“Werewolves?” Derek asked. “No. Just Scott and myself, plus Liam and Brett over there.” He indicated the two boys whose eyes were shining gold.

The question was only partially answered, though, when the younger Winchester noticed that the girl standing beside Stiles had eyes that matched Derek’s, and the Asian girl’s eyes were orange.

Scott looked at Derek, confused. “They’re not on the cusp of a change, but they’re not dying. I don’t understand. Shouldn’t it be one or the other?”

The Asian girl seemed perplexed as well. “Maybe it has something to do with coming back from the dead, unless that was metaphorical.”

“No, it wasn’t, Kira,” another girl, this one with red hair, told her. “They’ve both died, several times over. It’s radiating off of them so much I can barely concentrate.”

The Sheriff cocked an eyebrow at the girl and then them. “What the Hell does that mean, Lydia?”

“It’s a _long_ , complicated story,” Dean told them through gritted teeth. He eyed Kira and the other glowing-eyed girl skeptically and opted to change the subject, not wanting to go into the details of that particular tale. “If you two aren’t werewolves, what are you?”

With strength of numbers, the pack didn’t safeguard the information from the pair that Chris Argent said they could trust. Derek was the one who answered. “My cousin Malia is a werecoyote. Kira is a kitsune—a werefox.”

“We know where they are,” Dean grunted. Bad blood with Sam and bad memories of Amy Pond came flooding back. “So you eat pituitary glands?” he asked Kira accusingly.

The girl turned up his nose. “Eww, gross. No.”

“There are lots of different kinds of kitsune,” Stiles cut in. “ _Trust me_.”

Dean looked at Stiles, the Sheriff, and the Deputy. He noted the resemblance between the first two. “Your kid, Sheriff?” he asked Stilinksi, who simply nodded.

Sam was almost stunned. “So many different types of supernaturals, working together? I’ve never seen a precedent like it before. Are you three the only humans in the pack?” he asked the trio.

“Two out of three,” Parrish answered honestly. “Not sure what I am. Argent’s bestiary didn’t have an answer for that. If your Hunter encyclopedias have a clue, please feel free to share.”

Sam was about to ask Jordan what he meant, but Derek spoke up again. “So how did you two wind up here?”

“A pureblood werewolf named Violet Duval,” Sam replied. “She said Deucalion was defeated here and that the emissary here might be able to help us do it again. We didn’t have a name, so she suggested seeking out the pack’s Alpha—Laura Hale. That’s when we learned that she was….”

The words slipped from Sam’s tongue. To say them was too harsh. Dean was about to, but Derek beat him to punch. “You were about to say dead? Murdered, maybe? Right on both counts. My uncle—Malia’s father—did it. I remember the Duvals from their dealings with my mother, though I never met Violet. They stopped coming around after their emissary was killed. They kind of lost it after, like we tend to do when that happens.”

“So what about your emissary? Do you think they might be able to help?” Sam asked.

Derek considered it. “We’ll talk to him. See what he has to say. Since we’re not under the gun with you two transforming, we’ll get his advice before we make any decisions on how to deal with Deucalion.”

Dean looked as though he were about to protest, but Sam cut him off as he often had to. “We’re going to head back to the motel. You’ve got our number,” he smiled, leading his brother out and back to the car.

 

As the brothers got to the car, Dean rested his forearms on the roof of the Impala. “Why do I get the feeling that was an audition?”

“Because it was,” Sam assured him. “For what it’s worth, I think we passed. Thankfully, your friend Argent was our in, because Derek doesn’t exactly seem like the trusting type. He’s got that look like he’s been burned in the past… a lot.”

Dean’s face hardened. “That’s not good. If he’s willing to go against his instincts, it can only mean one thing.”

“That Deucalion is a lot more dangerous than we thought,” Sam nodded, climbing into the passenger’s seat.

 

“I had a good feeling about them,” Parrish told the others, “but does someone want to tell me who or what is a Deucalion?” Brett and Liam found themselves absently nodding in agreement.

Derek and Scott looked at each other. Unsurprisingly, it was talkative Stiles who elaborated. “A psychotic Alpha who murdered his own pack, convinced others to do the same and join him, and slaughtered anyone who resisted them, even going so far as murdering his own when they no longer proved useful.”

“He killed one of my Beta and used my own claws to kill another,” Derek explained, and the others noticed that he wasn’t even able to say Erica and Boyd’s names. “He almost killed my sister. If Scott hadn’t become a True Alpha, he and Jennifer would have killed us all.”

Scott was quick to say more of Derek’s own contributions. “Derek saved Cora by giving up his own Alpha power to save her from dying.” He wanted the newer members of the pack to understand that despite Hale’s tough exterior, he was someone willing to risk everything without regard to himself.

“The Winchesters came to me because they wanted help learning control. Now that the need for that has passed, this fight is now ours. The Hunters aren’t a part of this now,” Derek announced.

Stiles spoke up. “Once they got the whole picture, they didn’t split. They were already hunting Deucalion, and the fact that they’re still alive without knowing what they were dealing with speaks volumes about their skills. I think we’d be crazy to turn down the help of two obviously capable Hunters.”

Derek cut the boy one of his patented glares of doom, but Scott rescued him. “He’s right. We needed the Argents last time, but Allison is dead and her father is out of the country,” the Alpha pointed out, though it was hard for anyone not to notice the hitch in his throat at the mention of his former girlfriend. “At the very least, we should hear what Deaton has to say.”

The look on his face suggested Derek still had arguments to give, but he said nothing to counter McCall. Instead, he nodded quietly.

 

When the Winchester brothers got back to the motel, it was Dean who got on the laptop, a beer in hand while he tried to find everything he could about werewolves, werecoyotes, and kitsune. Sam opted to read their father’s journal, and his brow furrowed when he got to one passage. Even out of the corner of his eye, Dean noticed instantly. “What?”

“Reading about when you and Dad were here before. You ever read the whole entry? He talks about another Hunter here—a woman,” Sam replied.

Dean shook his head, confused. “Couldn’t have been Kate. I was fifteen, and she was maybe twelve. Maybe Chris’ mother?” he suggested.

“Definitely not,” Sam shook his head. “He talks about keeping her involvement a secret. Apparently, she didn’t trust Gerard Argent and was trying to keep an eye on him without his knowledge.”

Dean knew his brother well enough to catch a few subtle nuances in his face. “Quit making me pull teeth here, Sammy. Spill.”

“Dad didn’t know she was a Hunter until she saved his ass and patched him—over the course of several days,” Sam explained, not explicitly stating what he suggested.

The elder Winchester caught on, though, nodding. “Dad didn’t come back to the motel for almost a week. I was about to skip town and come to you when he showed up—standard procedure if he’s MIA for too long. I remember Dad being distracted after the Hunt was over. I walked in on a phone call that I didn’t think too much of at the time, but now?”

“You remember a phone call from two decades ago?” Sam asked.

Dean continued. “I was a giant ball of teenaged hormones. It sticks in your head when your father tells someone to leave their boyfriend and come with him. I thought it was just some line at the time, but looking back in hindsight? Obviously, Dad wasn’t so one-track minded that he didn’t have hook-ups on the road. If he was shacked up with some woman for almost a week? Cue the Marvin Gaye.”

Sam was in the middle of drinking his own beer when the bottle’s contents shot out of his nose, causing him to cough violently. Dean was at his side in an instant, slapping his back to get him to breathe easier. After a moment, Sam waved him off that he was okay, wiping the tears that had welled in his eyes as he struggled to clear his airway. “You know those cryptic, non-Hunting entries Dad made from time to time?”

“Yeah,” Dean grunted.

Sam pointed to the one he had just read, reciting the words aloud. “She gave it up to keep it safe. She’s right, of course, but it’s hard just the same. I wish I was with the boys today so I wouldn’t be thinking about what I’ll be missing out on.”

“I remember that one. Seemed strange, even for Dad,” Dean commented… just as a light-bulb went off in his mind. “You don’t think…?”

Sam nodded. “It’s dated nine months after you guys were here.”


	4. This Keeps Getting Worse By the Second

When the brothers got to the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic, they paused before going inside. “What is it?” Sam asked.

“I don’t think we should mention what we found in the journal last night. We can look into it later, but it unnecessarily complicates things right now,” Dean suggested.

Sam wordlessly nodded and walked past the black Camaro he had seen the night before, walking into the clinic just ahead of his brother. Once they got inside, a voice beckoned them to the back.

Derek and Scott flanked an African-American man who was looking at a map with them. Even a cursory glance revealed that it was the pattern identifying the string of bodies left in Deucalion’s wake. “What the Hell?” Dean asked. “You already knew about this?”

The stoic man raised his head and offered a half-smile. “No. After your meeting last night, Stiles hacked your laptop,” he admitted. “I’m Alan Deaton.”

“The emissary?” Sam presumed.

Deaton nodded, and Scott was quick to defend his friend in absentia. “In Stiles’ defense, he wasn’t trying to go behind your back. His ADHD kept him up all night, and he was trying to figure out what’s going on without waking you guys up.”

Dean exhaled sharply, and Sam knew his brother was pissed. Instead of letting him voice his anger, Sam quickly cut in. “Was he able to figure out anything?”

“Yeah,” Derek told them. “Deucalion is on his way back here. He’s pushing up his timetable now, by the looks of it. If I had to guess, he’ll be here in a week. Ten days on the outside.”

The elder Winchester let his temper mildly cool in favor of an irritated question. “So what is he here for this time?”

“I’m guessing the same thing as last time,” Deaton replied. “He wants Scott to join his pack—his new pack.”

A female voice cut in behind them. “Not exactly. He doesn’t want Scott in his pack. He wants to kill him.”

As the brothers turned to identify the speaker, Deaton gave them a name. “Dean and Sam Winchester, this is my sister, Marin Morrell.”

“Why does he want me dead?” Scott asked.

Morrell walked closer to join them. “He wants to create a new pack, but with Alphas he can control. He doesn’t want the recklessness of Kali and Ennis, or the change of heart of Aiden and Ethan. He wants to create new werewolves and turn them into Alpha-killers.”

“By the looks of things, he’s already doing that,” Dean grunted.

Morrell shook his head. “No. He’s recruited Alphas that have killed their pack again, but they’re not his end game. They’re expendable… a means to an end.”

“That still doesn’t explain why he’s coming for me,” Scott protested. “Why not bide his time and build this dream team?”

She explained, “Because he can’t. Something Jennifer did when she restored his sight. He can’t create new Betas. He thinks that by taking Scott’s power, he can undo that.”

“The True Alpha thing you mentioned?” Sam asked Derek, who simply nodded.

Dean eyed the woman skeptically. “And you’re an expert because?”

“She’s an emissary as well,” Deaton offered.

She all but ignored the Hunter. “And I’ve been following him after I learned he was on the move.”

“How many are we talking?” Derek asked.

Sam shook his head. “No way for us to know. Total body count is around a hundred by our estimation, but that doesn’t tell us much.”

“Twelve,” Morrell answered. “He has twelve Alphas now.”

Scott looked crestfallen. “ _Twelve?_ ” he repeated incredulously. “He brought four last time, and we lost Erica and Boyd. That was with equal numbers, a homicidal Darach, and an experienced Alpha. How do we fight _twelve_?”

For the first time since becoming a True Alpha, the onus of that responsibility was evident on McCall’s shoulders. Derek offered a surprisingly empathetic look. “We’ll figure it out,” the former Alpha assured him. “You’ve got Liam, Brett, Malia, and Kira, plus whatever Parrish is, and me, obviously.” Scott’s optimism—almost naivete—was having a hard time dealing with it. After the Alpha pack the last time, he had to save his friend from something that possessed him. After that was an inexhaustible list of bounty hunters. This time, though, Scott knew exactly what he would be facing, which proved daunting.

“You’ve got us, too,” Sam added.

Dean nodded in agreement. “We know a thing or two about fighting werewolves, and it sounds like you could use the numbers.”

Scott turned to Derek, who nodded. He wasn’t Scott’s Alpha anymore—if he ever truly was—but the teenager wanted some confirmation that he was doing the right thing. Derek had been a werewolf his entire life, and Deucalion nearly killed him. Neither had any fear of their own deaths, but weight of the potential deaths of pack-mates was a fear that both could smell on one another.

“Thank you,” Scott finally said to the Hunters.

Derek didn’t like relying on outside help, but there was little choice in the matter now. “We’ll show you differences between us and the Omegas you’ve faced so the surprises will be kept to a minimum,” the Pureblood told them. “For now, Scott needs to get back to school. Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”

Scott smiled. Derek still watched out for him, in his way. The “Sour-Wolf” (as Stiles called him) still felt responsible for him, just as he felt responsible for everyone else… including Derek. Grabbing his backpack, he started for the front of the clinic with Derek only a step behind.

Once they were gone, Dean turned to Deaton. “You’re like their Obi-Wan, right?”

“Something like that,” the veterinarian smiled.

“So have you been around these parts a while?” Dean asked.

Deaton nodded. “Pretty much my whole life. I was Derek’s sister’s emissary, and I counseled his mother briefly before her death while he was away.”

“You know the Argents, I’m guessing?” Dean asked.

Deaton nodded again. “Yes. Talia and Laura had the pack steer clear of them, so we thought they were unaware of the Pack’s presence. We learned otherwise when Kate set fire to the Hale place with human and werewolf alike inside, burning it to the ground and killing almost all. Laura was trying to get her family out, but Kate and her Hunters cut her in half while she was trying to pull a child free.”

The Winchesters’ stomachs turned in unison. Hunting was one thing. Murdering innocents, especially children, was another matter entirely. “I knew Kate years ago, but I had no idea she was capable of that,” Dean grimaced.

“She’s even more dangerous now,” Deaton explained. “Should your paths cross again, Kate was believed dead at the hands—or claws—or Derek’s uncle, Peter. Instead, she became a werejaguar.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Seriously?” he spat.

“I’m afraid so,” Deaton nodded. “I thought I recognized your name. Your last name, anyway. I’m presuming John Winchester was your father?”

Sam’s curiosity was piqued. “You knew our Dad?”

“Briefly. He came to the one that trained Marin and me decades ago,” he replied.

Sam was even more confused. “He knew about emissaries?”

“No,” Morrell cut in. “He knew about druids. He came for herbs and advice. We protect our packs, first and foremost by keeping them hidden from the rest of the world… especially those who would kill them.”

Dean didn’t take the bait. He could tell the woman was itching for a fight. “So did you know of another Hunter that was working in Beacon Hills at the time?”

“Now isn’t time for a history lesson,” Morrell told them. “We have a clear and present danger and a bleak future. We can answer those kinds of questions another time. My brother and I have preparations to make.”

Sam nodded and urged his brother out. Not bothering with the niceties of saying goodbye, instead heading straight for the car. Once they were safely out of earshot, the male emissary’s glare chastised his sister. “Why were you lying?”

“You know why,” she answered. “They think she was a Hunter. It’s better we continue with that pretense; otherwise, we’ll give away her secrets, which will cause a tremendous amount of upheaval that we can’t afford right now.”

Deaton wasn’t convinced. “She told him she was a Hunter so the inevitable questions about druids and emissaries didn’t follow. She helped him and sent him on his way, but then she quit. She never had anything to do with the order again, and we never even learned why. Aren’t you curious as to her reasons?”

“Not especially,” Marin rolled her eyes. “Like I told them, now is not the time. When I said we needed to make preparations, though, it was not simply for the Winchesters’ benefit. We’ve got a lot to do to get your replacement ready.”

Deaton shook his head. “I have been handling that for many, many months now. I’ve been dream-walking to offer training and guidance without revealing my presence. All that’s left is to flip the switch when the time is right, which will be accomplished with or without us.”

“Are you going to be okay saying goodbye?” she asked. “I may be the hardass here, but you’re still my brother. I know how close you’ve become to Scott and his friends.”

Deaton smiled. “I have, but this is how it should be. I was the Hale pack’s emissary. You know our traditions. Now that the mantle of leadership has passed outside of the line, it is our way that a new emissary serve the new Alpha. Once Derek sacrificed his power to save Cora and Scott ascended, I should have stepped down.”

“You cannot be blamed for that. Circumstances prevented it,” Marin pointed out.

Deaton nodded. “But that obstacle has been overcome. It is time, and I will leave this new pack in the hands of one whose love for it will produce a far better emissary than you or I. I will die in peace.”

“And I will be at your side, taking my last breath with you,” she said, walking over to embrace him in an uncharacteristic embrace.


	5. Preparing for Battle

Dean brandished the knife with his usual skill, but Derek was fast. Every time the Hunter he thought he had the Pureblood lined up for the “kill”, he would sidestep, counter, or otherwise prevent Dean from making the final attack. The Winchester, almost ten years older than the shapeshifter, found himself working up a sweat more than he had done in months or even years. His heart was pounding in his chest, and reluctantly, he held up his hand to signal he was ready for a break.

“There won’t be a break. There won’t be a reprieve. These are _Alphas_ ,” Derek all but growled. “They have one goal: to kill… specifically Scott, but they won’t stop until they eliminate everyone in their way.”

Scott stood and was about to remind Derek that the Winchesters were there to help, but Sam held out his arm across the boy’s chest to stop him. He smiled understandingly. “Don’t. My brother needs to understand this, and getting him pissed off will go a lot further towards getting it into his head than any words.”

Reluctantly, the teen nodded and sat back down. Both he and Sam just listened as the exchange continued. “Everything you think you know about werewolves is a joke,” Derek grunted, catching Dean’s hand in his own, twisting it near to the breaking point before the Hunter dropped to the ground in a move that tossed Hale onto his back. The maneuver caught both lycanthropes off-guard.

“Maybe,” Dean said, rolling to his feet. He extended his hand to Derek, but the younger man sprung to his feet without assistance. Dean smirked in glib satisfaction. “But werewolves aren’t the only things we hunt—far from it, actually. We have to be ready for anything because we don’t always know what’s coming at us.”

Derek shook his head. “There’s no maybe to it. Any werewolf you fought before Deucalion was an Omega. Those are the lowest of us. Essentially cast-offs whose packs either kicked them out or weren’t strong enough to survive. It takes its toll.”

“Yeah, yeah. Madness, isolation, and all that,” Dean taunted, poising himself to attack again.

Derek paused, though. “Though driven by rage, Omegas that have succumbed to their base instincts are fairly predictable. Alphas won’t be.” He stepped back and intently stared at the Hunter. “Bringing a knife to a fight with a werewolf—much less an Alpha—is probably tantamount to suicide anyway. Shoot me.”

Dean looked at Derek like he’d grown another head. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I _said_ , ‘Shoot me’,” Derek repeated.

Scott shifted uncomfortably, and Sam noted his discomfort. “I don’t think this is such a good idea,” Sam offered.

“Do it,” Derek said. “Unless it’s silver or Wolf’s bane, it won’t be fatal anyway. I’m trying to make a point here.”

Dean looked at his brother, who shrugged uncertainly. Without warning, the Hunter had brought his gun to bear on Derek, opening fire. Instead of hitting him, as expected, Dean could only manage a “Son of a…” before the werewolf is on him, knocking him several yards backwards. “We have speed, strength, and endurance that makes us superior to any human. Our senses are heightened. We can heal from almost any wound. While we’re not indestructible, we are, on the whole, apex predators.”

Dean emptied the clip this time, and though a few rounds managed to graze Derek, in the blink of an eye, Derek had managed to shift into his full black wolf form, pouncing on Dean and slavering over his face. The sheer speed with which the transformation occurred caught everyone off-guard, including Scott, who hadn’t realized how much control Derek had learned since that first time in the desert.

“Get off me!” Dean grunted, pushing the wolf off of him.

Derek shifted back to his normal form, albeit more slowly that the reverse. Even as he did, the smug smile was evident throughout. Folding his arms across his chest, the nude man stood there unabashedly disinterested in his own nudity.

“Okay, I get it. Alphas can do whatever, so I need to be ready for whatever,” Dean reluctantly admitted.

Derek nodded. “And I’m not even an Alpha, but most Purebloods who are can do what I just did, though probably better and faster. That’s only the tip of the iceberg, though. Two of the Alphas we fought before could merge into a bigger Alpha.”

“My ears are burning,” a voice behind them called. Everyone turned to see who it was, but it was Scott’s face that broke out into a smile. Ethan returned the expression as he approached.

“Ethan? What are you doing here?” Scott asked, but before the words left Ethan’s mouth, another voice answered for him.

Danny walked up, just a few steps behind. “We came to help.”

“Danny?” Scott smiled in disbelief. “What happened to you? No one has seen or heard from you in ages.”

Danny nodded. “After a while, I took off after this guy. My head said he and I were done, but my heart had a different opinion. I spent the better part of a year looking for him.”

“Um…,” Scott finally stammered, suddenly aware of Derek standing—very naked—just a few feet away.

“It’s okay,” Ethan assured him. “Danny knows all about us. He’s known for a long time.”

Derek growled, but Danny stepped directly between the two former Alphas. “Ethan didn’t tell me. I figured it out myself.”

“How?” Scott asked, genuinely curious for only a moment before he figured it out on his own. “The video—with Jackson—so you did see it.”

Danny nodded. “I played dumb so you guys wouldn’t be distracted worrying about me and you could focus on helping Jackson.”

Dean grunted, walking over to the Impala. “If training is done for now,” he said, rummaging through a bag in the trunk and producing a wad of clothing he threw to Derek, “put on some pants.”

Both Danny and Ethan were staring by this point, their reverie finally broken when Sam addressed them. “You said you came to help?”

“Yeah. When Stiles used the worm virus to watch for hacks, I actually had it piggyback the signal to me,” Danny explained.

Ethan added, “I was part of Deucalion’s pack. I know his handiwork, and it didn’t take long for us to figure out he was headed back here. You guys took Aiden and me in when we didn’t have anywhere to go. I owe you my life.”

Danny saw the subtle changes in his boyfriend’s body language at the mention of his brother. The loss of a sibling was unimaginable, but the loss of one as close as the two of them had been would haunt and devastate him with every breath. Aiden’s death reminded Danny of something else. He offered Scott a sympathetic expression. “I’m sorry about Allison. I was on the road and didn’t find out until long after the funeral.”

“And we didn’t find out about the problems you guys went through last year until after the danger had passed; otherwise, I would have come back sooner,” Ethan offered.

Scott shook his head with a smile. “Thank you—both of you—but you don’t owe me anything.”

“Is everyone here all War Games when it comes to computers?” Dean grunted. “I thought that Stiles kid was the only one.”

Danny smiled. “He learned it from me. As for Ethan, you’re not going to convince him that he doesn’t owe you, and I’m not letting him do this alone. I’m in, too.” He wrapped his arms around the werewolf and kissed him.

“I don’t want any dead teenagers,” Dean protested.

Ethan’s eyes glowed blue, and the fangs were beginning to protrude. “I lost a pack and my way with Deucalion. Scott helped me find both again. He needs help, so I’m here to give it.”

“Who are you, anyway?” Danny asked, finally realizing that he didn’t have the foggiest notion who the pair of strangers were.

Scott jumped in. “Danny and Ethan, this is Sam and Dean Winchester. They’re Hunters, and they’re here to help.”

“Scott, why don’t you get them up to speed on what they’ve missed,” Derek suggested, now dressed in the jeans and tee Dean had given him. They were roughly the same height, but the werewolf’s broader chest was stretching what would have been a loose shirt to its capacity. He had ample clothing in his own car, but he decided that since he’d ruined the last set on an object lesson for the Hunters, it was the least they could do. “I think we’re done here. I’m going to head back to talk to Deaton, and I’ll call you later.”

The Alpha nodded and left with the returned couple, catching up—even under these dire circumstances—like they didn’t have a care in the world. Derek watched with a twinge of jealousy and the faintest hint of a smile on his face. The Pureblood walked over to where he had set his keys and his phone before he and Dean had started sparring, and just before he shoved the latter into his pocket, it began to ring.

The caller ID showed “Braeden”, so he answered it with an even broader smile. “Hey,” he greeted, and the Hunters started for their own car. They halted in their tracks at the change in his tone. “What the Hell have you done with her, Kate?”

The Winchesters turned to read his face, only to see the expressive equivalent to a sucker-punch. Tears welled in Derek’s eyes, but his sadness and grief quickly gave way to rage. “I will find you, Kate. And when I do, I _will_ kill you.”

He roared in frustration, throwing the phone such a distance and with such force that its destruction was assured. He fell to his knees, repeating the same words over and over again. “She’s dead. Braeden’s dead.”


	6. Alpha Behavior

As Derek moved hastily towards the Camaro, Dean tossed the keys to the Impala towards his brother. Years of being a Hunter allowed his reflexes to catch them before he even realized what was going on. “Go tell Scott and the others what’s going on,” Dean told Sam as he started after the werewolf.

“What are you doing?” the younger Winchester asked, the confusion evident on his face.

Dean smiled as he made it to the sports car just a second or so behind Derek. “Making sure he doesn’t get himself killed.”

As the elder Winchester slid into the passenger seat, Derek glared at him. “GET OUT!”

“No,” Dean said calmly, nestling back into the passenger seat with his arms folded across his chest.

Derek’s eyes glowed blue, and his fangs elongated. “I _said_ ….”

“I heard what you said,” Dean assured him, revealing that beneath his elbow, he had a pistol pointed at the driver. “This one _is_ loaded with silver, meaning I can put a round in your leg, not only slowing you up enough that Kate will get away but possibly taking you out of commission in the battle that’s coming for all of you.”

Derek growled, and Dean just smiled more, pissing the younger man off.

“Your option is to hurt me. I think I proved to you today that I’m not going to make easy on you. That means you’re going to have to really hurt or even kill me, meaning that _I_ will be out of commission for the foreseeable future. Worst case scenario is we’re both laid up, and a bunch of teenagers and my brother, who I would and have died for, will have to face a dozen Alphas all alone. All because you’re either blinded by vengeance or too proud to accept my help.”

Derek was fuming, but Dean was resolute. He did let the smile fade, as not to add fuel to the fire. “Are you willing to have that blood on your hands?”

As much as Derek wanted to regain control of this conversation, he realized he couldn’t—at least not quickly enough to have a chance at catching Kate. The fangs retracted and the eyes returned to their normal hue. “Fine,” he grunted, throwing the car in gear and slamming the accelerator to the floorboard.

“I’m here to be back-up. Plus, I remember Kate and the Argents. You need help if you’re going to come back here in one piece,” he explained. “I’m something of an expert on going off half-cocked, driven completely by emotion rather than reason. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I have and get those kids hurt or dead.”

Derek said nothing, so Dean continued. “Scott may be the Alpha, but you’re the pack’s protector. I knew that within seconds of meeting you. I understand feeling that responsibility, and it eats away at you. A thankless task that no one in their right mind would even consider, but our hardware wiring is so fucked up that we couldn’t _not_ do it if we wanted to.”

Derek remained quiet, but Dean could tell he was getting through. Might as well keep talking. “Well, maybe not completely thankless. The Sheriff basically threatened to kill Sam and I if we piled any shit on you. He seems to think pretty highly of you.”

 _Bingo_. Derek couldn’t help but stare at Dean in disbelief. Derek though Stilinksi still thought of him as some thug… a necessary evil he tolerated to safeguard his town. Dean let it drop there. “Eyes on the road, Fido. Some of us don’t magically heal, so let’s keep fatal car accidents to a minimum, if you don’t mind.”

Derek did as he was bade, and Dean gave a sigh of relief. After a few more moments of awkward silence, Dean leaned forward and began to scan through the radio stations; or, at least, he did, until Derek swatted his hand away. “Driver picks the music.”

Dean smiled and sat back in his seat.


	7. Butch and Sundance

It took almost three days to pick up any signs of Kate’s trail, and truth be told, Dean was starting to get worried that they were going to run out of time. They needed to be back in Beacon Hills before Deucalion arrived, but he wasn’t entirely certain that Derek was going to be willing to leave when the time came if he hadn’t exacted his revenge first. While Derek knelt to the ground and sniffed the air, Dean checked his phone. Again, there was no signal. He didn’t like being this cut off from Sam, whom he hadn’t spoken to in more than twenty-four hours, but he had little choice in the matter. There weren’t a lot of cell towers in this part of Mexico, so to get in call range, he would have to leave Derek, which he knew, in his gut, was a bad idea.

Another part of him was craving even some inane dialogue with his brother. He had tried talking to Derek off and on with varying degrees of success. Mostly, the werewolf said nothing… nothing at all. Even Dean, who was typically the strong, silent type by nature, found it unnerving after a while. On some level, he suspected it had something to do with knowing the monster that lurked beneath Derek’s skin. A little idle chatter would go a long way with reassuring the Hunter that he wasn’t going to flip out at any moment.

Perhaps that’s why it surprised him when Derek started the conversation. “Why did you come with me anyway?” he asked without even facing Dean.

Dean suppressed a smile and fought the urge to shrug his shoulders. Besides Derek not being able to see it, it was also a lie. “Like I told you, you remind me of me. Specifically, the me of about ten years ago.”

Derek turned to glower at Dean with that furrowed brow that the Winchester had become accustomed to since they left California. “Should I be flattered or insulted?”

“Neither,” Dean replied. Then his mouth crept up into a smile. “Okay, maybe both.”

The grin proved surprisingly infectious, and Derek found himself having to forcibly push a similar expression from his own lips. “Okay. You might as well explain. The questions are starting to gnaw at my mind, and I can’t afford the distraction.”

Dean shrugged, this time letting the urge take control since Derek was watching him. “When we met, you seemed different. In a lot of ways like me, in a lot of ways like my brother, and in a lot of ways like neither of us,” he began. “But when you got the call, you became _not_ you. You were everything reckless and stupid that Sam and I have been over the past decade, and I knew that unchecked, you would spiral out of control.”

“Killing doesn’t take the pain away,” Dean continued, thinking to the influence that the Mark had held over him. “It only makes it worse. I’ve lost a father, a mother, a brother, and a family to this job, and no matter how many sons of bitches I put down, they aren’t coming back.”

Derek eyed him skeptically. “You have Sam back,” he pointed out, noting the perceived flaw in his argument.

“Yeah, I do, which is the only reason I’m able to keep going,” he admitted, “but I’m talking about someone else. Sammy and I had a half-brother we never knew while he was alive. He got eaten by ghouls before we ever had the chance. It’s been the two of us for so long, but after all that we’ve been through, I wish we’d gotten the chance to really get to know Adam.”

Even for someone as entrenched in the supernatural as Derek, he was struggling to find a response to that last statement. He thought about “I’m sorry”, but it seemed hollow and, well, _stupid_ , under the circumstance. Instead, he fell back into the quietude.

Dean didn’t let it dissuade him. He couldn’t help but marvel at the irony that he was acting far more like Sam than himself, but the last year or so with the Mark had changed him. He’d had enough of the violence for a lifetime, but he was still him, so he had a job he would continue to do until his dying day. “My brother and I have pulled us back from the brink more times than I can count. We anchor each other so that we don’t lose our way. The look on your face told me—and still does—that you need someone to be that for you.”

That one gave Derek pause. He smiled. “It’s funny. I remember Scott telling me something his mother told him when he and Allison broke up. She told him you fall in love more than once. It will happen again, but until then, you have to be your own anchor.”

“It’s good advice,” Dean admitted. “I don’t know that that kind of happiness is in the cards for me. Probably not, since Hunters don’t have the longest life expectancy, but from what I’ve gathered, you guys are wolf enough to share your lives with one another. Even in the short time I’ve been in Beacon Hills, I’ve noticed that almost everyone is paired off: Scott and Kira, Stiles and Malia, Ethan and Danny, and you and Braeden. Hell, I’m not even entirely certain about those Liam and Brett guys.”

That one made Derek chuckle. “Me, neither. They often have that animosity that translates into pure hate or pure love… well, _lust_.”

“Angry sex is sometimes the best sex,” Dean chuckled in return. He grew uncharacteristically serious again. “It’ll happen again.”

Derek hoped so, but he didn’t dare give voice to it for fear of destroying that possibility. In typical fashion, it was a moment of Dean’s levity that broke the tension. “Besides? Have you _seen_ you? You can at least have a _lot_ of sex—angry or otherwise—until you find that new anchor.”

Derek actually laughed, which caught both men off-guard. As things quieted, he offered Dean a grateful look. “Thanks,” he said. “I’m glad you came.”

“So am I,” a female voice said from behind them. “Dean, you have always been hot as Hell, but now you have that defeated slump in your shoulders that’s such a turn-on. I had _such_ a crush on you all those years ago, and when I learned you were here with Derek, I thought my fantasies had come true. After hearing that heartfelt little speech, though, I think we’ll skip the foreplay, and I’ll just rip out your heart instead.”

The former Huntress stepped out into the open where they could see her, folding her arms lazily across her chest. “Kate,” both men said in unison.

“In the flesh,” she smirked gleefully. “But don’t think I’m not glad to see you as well, Derek. I even brought you a present.”

She pointed in the opposite direction, and when Dean and Derek turned to look, neither was prepared for what they saw. “ _Braeden?_ ” the latter asked, doubting his own eyes. The bounty hunter smiled at her lover and walked towards him. Stunned in disbelief, he found himself walking towards her as well.

That’s when Dean saw it—the blood at her midsection. The amount and pattern screamed fatal near-evisceration, with her intestines likely being held inside by her shirt alone. That meant one thing, and the scent he caught confirmed it. Drawing Ruby’s knife, he rushed ahead of Derek, pushing the werewolf to the ground as he drove the blade into the woman’s already wounded stomach. Derek growled in confusion, Dean turned to explain. “Sulfur. Braeden’s dead… this is just some demon wearing her meat.”

Derek saw it and knew it to be true when her eyes went Hellish black. He also saw it when, as the demon was dying, it pulled the trigger of the gun it held against Dean’s own abdomen. Because Dean had been distracted—trying to make this easier for him—he didn’t see it. Derek wondered if he even heard the pistol being fired. Demon and Hunter alike fell limply to the ground, with the former as dead as its host and the latter very nearly likewise. Derek sprang to his feet and ran to Dean’s side, watching as the older man coughed up blood.

“How touching,” Kate taunted. “You saved me a lot of trouble by pretty much killing him yourself, Derek. When I heard a Winchester was with you, I figured a little demonic back-up might keep him busy. It just worked out _so_ much better than expected. Don’t forget, long before I was this, I was a Hunter. I have all sorts of tricks up my sleeve.”

Dean patted Derek’s forearm. “Go. I’ll be fine,” he lied.

Derek couldn’t do anything about Dean right now. He definitely could do something about Kate, though. As he started towards her, he began casting off his clothing. “I’m going to do what I should have done the last time we faced one another, Kate,” he growled, his eyes glowing and teeth elongating. “And now that your psychotic distraction is dead, you’re about to be. You’re not strong enough to beat me alone.”

Kate’s face took on its feline cast. “Who said I was alone?”

Even as he had begun to transform, Derek stopped. He immediately spun towards Dean to see Deucalion kneeling next to him. “I used Kate to lure you away from Scott and his pack because I knew I could,” the Alpha said, running his fingers along a barely conscious Dean’s neck. “You’re one of Scott’s most powerful weapons. With you out of the picture, killing him will be that much easier.”

“If you want to kill me, do it!” he shouted at the murderer. “But leave him out of this! He has nothing to do with this!”

Deucalion smiled. “That’s not entirely true,” he said to Derek as he drove one of his claws into Dean’s jugular. Blood began to spurt around the nail. The Hunter, surprisingly, had enough fortitude to reach up and hold pressure. “But you’re marginally right about one thing. I don’t care about him, and I don’t care about you.”

Derek lunged for him, but Deucalion caught him by the throat. “Kill the Hunter,” the inhuman maw of the now-gray Demon-Wolf said to Kate. Panicked, the Pureblood managed to shift, slipping out of the grasp that held him, only to put himself in front of the were-jaguar’s blade, which was driven deep into the black wolf’s back. Limping painfully, he turned towards Kate and growled as menacingly as he could manage, knowing that in his current condition, Kate could—and would—dispatch him easily.

As Kate drew the sacrificial knife back, Derek prepared to die. He had failed to avenge Braeden, and now not only he—but Dean as well—would die as a result. He closed his eyes in resignation to his fate, but the sound of a gunshot forced his eyes open. Dean had managed to fire his own pistol at Kate, and in an instant, Derek remembered Dean’s threat when they first left Beacon Hills. If there was any doubt about the bluff, they were fleeting. Even as the Hunter blacked out, Kate fell lifelessly to the ground from the baneful silver now embedded in her heart. Winchester had aimed the shot perfectly, even in his current state.

“You think she matters?” Deucalion laughed maniacally. “She fulfilled her purpose by getting you here, and now I’m going I’m going to end this.

No longer willing to give up so easily, Derek managed to get back to his feet, ready to face Deucalion to the inevitable end. He was ready to pounce just as the sound of automatic gunfire sprayed the ground narrow distance separating them. He looked up just in time to see Chris Argent and the Calaveras.

“ _La Loba_ is dead,” Araya told her son, Severo. “Get them into the jeep—quickly!”

Those were the last words he heard before he joined Dean in unconsciousness.


	8. A Cure Worse Than the Disease

When Derek slowly began to regain consciousness, he found movement—even that of opening his eyes—to be a chore. He felt a hand atop his. By the size, he knew it was female. The touch was too gentle to be Malia’s, too rough to be Kira’s. It was too warm to be Lydia’s. It was a shapeshifter, but who? He tried to focus on the scent, but his head was too cloudy. He remembered the sensation before. Someone gave him something for the pain. Could he really be back in Beacon Hills with Deaton?

He tried to sit up, and another woman’s hands pushed him down. He heard a voice and recognized it, so no mystery there. Scott’s mother Melissa was trying to get him to relax. Finally, the eyelids complied, and he saw Cora smiling back at him. “Cora?” he asked in disbelief.

“Do you really think when my brother sends me a cryptic text telling me that he loves me out of the blue that I’m not going to assume something’s wrong and rush back here?” she asked, tears running down her cheek. He managed to gather enough strength to raise his hand to wipe them away. He was overjoyed at seeing her, but her presence—and the pain he was feeling—reminded him of the current danger they faced.

Wincing in pain, he sat up right, pushing Cora and Melissa both off of him. Cora’s taunting brought one word to the forefront of his mind. _Brother. Dean._ He looked around in a panic, and across the room, he saw him. Sam was sitting next to him with tears in his eyes. Dean, who’d seem fairly indestructible for a human, was lying helplessly on the ventilator.

Against multiple objections, Derek ripped the IV from his arm and stood, his legs almost buckling beneath him. When people tried to help him stand, he growled, and though he was an Alpha no more, the sound carried enough warning that everyone backed away from him. All but one. Unsurprisingly, Scott just came closer, grabbed an arm as gently as he could, and placed it over his neck. He wrapped his other arm around Derek’s waist and led him over to Dean.

“Sam, I’m so sorry,” Derek grimaced, both from the signals of agony he was receiving from every fiber of his being and from the anticipation of the blow he expected to receive from the younger Winchester at any moment.

It never came. Sam just looked up at him and nodded. “He said he was going to make sure you didn’t get yourself killed. He’d be glad to know that he was able to.”

The understanding was more painful than any outburst the Hunter could have hurled his way. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked, helplessly.

“We’re doing all we can,” Melissa assured him quietly, “but it doesn’t look good.”

Derek just stared blankly. “How long have we been here?”

“Argent brought the two of you last night,” Scott told him. “He said he found you a day and a half ago.”

 _A day and a half?_ “Then Deucalion is probably only a couple of days away from staging his attack,” the male Pureblood said grimly. He walked over to a small wardrobe with an open door where he saw some of his clothes.

“Stiles brought them a few hours ago,” Scott told him, smiling at the gesture his friend had made.

Derek conceded the same in his head, but his words were on an altogether different topic. “I have to get ready to face Deucalion. I won’t let this have all been for nothing.”

“You’re in no shape to fight,” Deaton reminded him. “The knife Kate used on you was enchanted with dark magic. That’s why you’re healing so slowly. You won’t be ready in days. It would be a miracle if you were ready in weeks.”

It was only then that he noticed the vet was actually there. “Is there anything you can do for him?” Derek asked the emissary. “Dean’s only in this situation because he saved my life.”

“No,” Deaton said sadly, shaking his head. “He’s dying. Though Deucalion can’t create new werewolves, the opposite end of that spectrum doesn’t seem to have been affected by Jennifer.” As the vet pointed to Dean’s head, Derek saw it… black ooze. His body was rejecting the wounds caused by Deucalion’s claws.

Sam shook his head, confused. “But he bit or scratched us both the first time we encountered him. Why is this happening now?”

“Bites and scratches aren’t guaranteed to cause either effect. It has to do with the depth and type of the wounds,” Cora explained.

Melissa offered a theory as well. “If it’s like a virus, or a cancer, then the body’s underlying resistance may have some ability to fight it off, and given the overall health and conditioning of his body, I suspect that to be the case. After the gunshot, though, his system was probably too taxed, particularly after being exposed to it before so recently. That’s the basis of how the immune system works,” she explained. “The first time doesn’t always cause an allergic reaction. It usually comes with the second exposure. His body basically formed antibodies against Deucalion, and now it’s using those antibodies to fight what has happened.”

“This is all my fault,” Derek muttered.

“No,” a voice said defiantly as there was a rush of wind—indoors—and the sound of ruffling feathers. Cora and Scott’s eyes glowed instantly, both bearing claws, but Derek had a suspicion of who it was. Dean had talked a lot over the days they hunted Kate. So much of what the Hunter had said sounded too fantastical to be believed, but here stood testament to the truth.

Derek tried to stand upright. “You’re Castiel.”

The angel nodded. “Yes, Derek Hale, I am, and Dean’s injuries are not of your making, directly or otherwise.” He walked over to Derek, placing a hand upon the werewolf’s back. A glowing light filled the room. Derek instantly felt better, and he knew without a doubt that his wounds were gone.

“Thank you,” Sam said, springing to his feet and gripping Castiel in a firm embrace. “Thank you for coming.”

The angel regarded the hug with his usual stoicism. “You are welcome. I am sorry I could not come sooner. There is a new threat creating strife in Heaven. I have precious few moments I can spare before I must get back, but I heard your prayers.”

Castiel pulled away from him and move to Dean’s side. He laid a hand upon the Hunter’s forehead, and though light once again filled the room, there was no change in Dean’s condition. Everyone—including Castiel—seemed surprised. He tried again… with the same results.

“Cas? What is it?” Sam asked, the anxiety in his voice evident.

Castiel took his hand off of his friend and stared at Sam with an expression devoid of neutrality. The concern was obvious. “His body is too far gone… his injuries too grievous. If I heal his wounds, he will only reject the werewolf attack that much faster, and he will die instantly. If I remove the malignancy that the attack has caused, the shock and strain will be too great, and he will die instantly. If I try to cure both, his body would succumb to both at once, and he will die instantly.”

The harsh language stunned everyone. The message in those words left the room in utter silence. Finally, something occurred to Deaton. “Then don’t heal either,” he suggested.

“What?” Sam asked incredulously. He couldn’t wrap his head around what the man was proposing.

The emissary explained. “What if you let his body heal itself? If he only had one problem facing him—and the ability to regenerate—would he survive?”

“Yes,” Castiel nodded. “You propose that I make sure Dean's body accepts the transformation? That is within my power.”

Scott shook his head. “But Deucalion’s bite only kills.”

“Yours, however, is another story altogether,” Deaton pointed out. “Liam is proof of that.”

Sam didn’t trust his ears. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that if you want your brother to live, Scott needs to bite Dean… and turn him into a werewolf.”


	9. Familiar Faces

“No!” Sam answered immediately. “My brother would not want to be turned into a ….”

Derek winced as he interrupting, supplying the word he was certain Sam was looking for. “Monster.”

“Werewolf,” Sam quickly corrected. “I’ve gotten to know you guys over the last few days, and I know you’re not monsters. It’s not about that. Dean has been a vampire and a demon. He’s been influenced by the Mark of Cain. I know him, and he would rather be a dead human than a live anything else. You all are more in control of that side of you than any werewolves we’ve ever encountered, but on some level, it still has some sway over you.”

Derek looked crestfallen, and the guilt he felt washed over the room. Sam was hardly oblivious to it, addressing his next words to the Pureblood. “Look, Derek. This isn’t about you. Dean wouldn’t blame you, and I don’t either. He and I have spent years saving each other when we shouldn’t have. Hell, it’s practically a family trait we not only inherited but perfected. It’s taken a long time for me to get to the point that I will go against those instincts and actually do what he wants, so let me do this one, unselfish thing before I lose my will.”

“Whatever you decide, you should do it quickly,” Castiel said, laying his hands upon Dean’s forehead once more. “I’ve made sure he can accept the bite if you change your mind, but I’m afraid I have to go, Sam. In the moments that I’ve been here, my angelic brothers are dying. I have to be with them, just as you have to be with him.”

Sam nodded. “I understand, Cas. Thank you.”

The angel disappeared in the manner in which he had appeared, the breeze and rustling of feathers disturbing the air in the room—just as a group of teens entered. The shock caused a tray of coffees to go tumbling to the floor from Isaac’s grasp. Lydia was right behind him, with Jackson’s arm over her shoulder. The latter werewolf caught a glimpse of the angel’s exit. “What the Hell?” he exclaimed.

Derek looked at two werewolves with obvious confusion. “Wrong direction, but what are you two doing here?” he asked. “I thought you both were still in Europe.”

“Scott called me, and I got on the first flight,” Isaac smiled at his former Alpha. “I owe you two everything. I wasn’t about to let you have to face Deucalion again without helping.”

When Derek’s attention fell on him, Jackson cocked one sardonic eyebrow at him in return. “Don’t look at me. Lydia called me. I don’t know this Deucalion other than what they tell me, and I don’t owe you shit—you killed me,” he reminded his former Alpha. “However, as much as it pains me to say it, especially since, apparently—if the red eyes are any indicator—he’s even better at being a werewolf than I am, I owe McCall. He didn’t give up on me like the rest of you did, and I hate feeling indebted to him.”

Scott smiled. Jackson, who was helping Isaac clean up the spilled beverages, wasn’t even looking at him, and yet, somehow, he knew. “McCall, wipe that _stupid_ grin off your _stupid_ face.” Scott just smiled more broadly. “If I miraculously manage to live through this, we’re even. You got it?”

“Got it,” Scott nodded.

Even in light of the grim situation, Sam smiled. He supposed it was because even in the face of tragedy, death, and more supernatural crap than even most Hunters ever experienced, the kids were just that… _kids_. Somehow, it reminded him of why all of them did what they did—so those not in the know could live a happy, _normal_ life, unaffected by it all.

“What is it?” Derek asked him, his curiosity piqued at the younger Winchester’s expression.

Even with tear-stained cheeks, Sam smiled. “I thought you reminded me of my brother when we met… I was wrong,” he said. He nodded towards Jackson. “He does. Or maybe Dean’s just an unhealthy mix of the both of you.”

As if to make some sort of display, Jackson growled and his eyes glowed blue. Lydia slapped him on the back of his head, and the demonstration quickly faded. As he and Isaac walked past Derek to toss the refuse from the wasted drinks, Derek grabbed Isaac, pulled him close, and sniffed. “What the Hell? Why do you have Jackson’s scent?” he asked. “Are you two…?”

Jackson’s face recoiled in horror. “Eww, no!” he protested. “If I was gonna swing that way, I could do _so_ much better than Lahey.”

“You wish,” Isaac laughed with an eye roll. “But rest assured, no, we’re not. I had a layover at Heathrow, so he and I flew over together. When we landed, I found out my bags were lost. Don’t let the hardass routine fool you. He let me borrow one of his shirts.”

Jackson grunted. “I let you _have_ one of my shirts. I don’t want it back now that you’ve had your grubby paws on it,” he snorted in derision. “Besides, it was self-defense. After that many hours on a plane, you smelled like a locker room.”

The moment was shattered when Lydia walked over to Dean. She scrutinized his face with intense focus, an otherwise blank stare that the others had come to know.

“What is it, Lyds?” Jackson asked. Her abilities as a wailing woman didn’t come full swing until after he was gone, and though she had told him of them during their phone calls, he had never seen it in person.

Cora was the one who answered. “He’s close to the end,” she answered for the other girl. “My nose is more sensitive than most of yours, and I can smell it.”

The reverie was broken, and Sam was thrust back into the all-too-real present with the weight of his decision crushing him, making it hard for him to breathe. It was Scott who walked up to him and urged him out of the room. “Let’s step outside for a minute. We’ll only be a few feet away.”

Reluctantly, Sam agreed. Once they were in the hallway, he collapsed to the floor. Scott slid to the ground beside him. “I would ask what I could do,” the teen told the Hunter, “but I know what I can do. Are you sure you won’t reconsider?”

Sam didn’t say anything. He didn’t trust his voice, and moreover, he didn’t trust his words or his resolve. He finally opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. And so Scott continued. “When Allison’s mother was bitten by Derek—to save my life,” he quickly added to explain, though Sam was more aware of the pain in the boy’s voice when he spoke of his fallen former girlfriend, “she chose to kill herself rather than become like us. Most of the Hunters we’ve encountered think we’re all horrible abominations that need to be put down.”

“I’m not saying you’re completely wrong about it running the show sometimes,” Scott admitted, “but those times are few and far between. I’m still me. I didn’t ask for Peter to turn me, but in time, I was glad he did. Can you be sure that Dean wouldn’t grow to feel the same?”

Sam reluctantly answered, admitting, “I don’t know.”

“I’m not Lydia. I don’t have any insight into what the future holds, so I can’t say what will happen with you guys staying and helping us fight Deucalion and his pack, but I do know that if I don’t turn Dean, he’s going to die. Nobody here wants that. I don’t, you don’t, and Derek certainly doesn’t,” the Alpha pointed out.

“Derek’s been surrounded by more death and loss than any hundred people deserve. I don’t know what happened out in the desert, but clearly, he thinks a lot of Dean. He’s not exactly Mr. Touchy-Feely when it comes to emotions, but even I can see the concern. I know the guilt he’ll feel,” Scott told him. “Please don’t ask me to do nothing and put him—and you—through that. I don’t know that I can.”

The door opened, and Derek poked his head out. “Everything okay?” he asked, instantly regretting his choice of phrasing. It was a stupid question, and he knew it.

Scott smiled in understanding. Looking over at Sam, who stared quietly at the floor, he rose to his feet. He met Derek’s gaze and motioned towards where he had been sitting. He pulled the door open to go back into the hospital room, urging Derek to step out. Hesitantly, the former Alpha did so, and Scott disappeared as the door closed behind him.

After a few awkward moments of just standing there, Derek finally took a seat next to the Hunter. Werewolf hearing meant he heard every word of what Scott said, despite trying not to eavesdrop. He couldn’t help it, focusing on anything but the damned machine that was breathing for the dying man in the next room… a man dying because of him, no matter what everyone said. The more the boy came to his defense—the more he understood his devotion to his friends—the easier it was to remember just why he was a True Alpha.

“That’s not an easy offer for him to make,” Derek finally uttered. “Even knowing the outcome, Scott would feel guilty just the same. He bit Liam to save his life, but now he feels responsible for every shit thing that has happened to him since. That’s the reason it took so long for him to create a Beta… and a reason that Liam is his only Beta. The life of a Hunter isn’t exactly a drama-free one.”

Sam had to smile at that. “No, and we’re far worse than most. Someone tells you that it’s the Apocalypse, and all you can think is ‘It must be Tuesday’.”

Derek half-smiled in return. “As Alpha, Scott _is_ responsible for his pack. He knows that and is willing to carry that burden of responsibility anyway because that’s who he is. Dean could do a lot worse than having him as an Alpha, because he would never have to worry about Scott taking advantage of that—it’s not in him. It would never even occur to him. At his age, he’s a better Alpha than I ever was. Hell, he’s a better man than I’ll ever be.”

Sam couldn’t help but look at the werewolf who, despite an initial air of bravado, had such a low opinion of himself. The Hunter reconsidered his assessments and decided his initial impression was right: Derek and Dean were _way_ too much alike. “I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that last point.”

Derek turned away at that. He couldn’t stand this forgiveness that Sam was offering. He didn’t feel that he warranted it. “It’s Scott’s way to help everyone, whether they want it or deserve it: me, Jackson, the twins, a possessed Stiles, you name it. He’s right that I will feel guilty if Dean dies, but that’s on me. I’m hoping you’ll reconsider not only so you don’t have to say goodbye to your brother but a seventeen-year-old with the weight of the world on his shoulders doesn’t have to feel guilty about not saving a life when it’s within his power to do so.”

Sam’s expression was unreadable, but somehow Derek knew he was considering what both he and Scott had said to him. Finally, Sam looked over at him again and nodded. He smiled. “Not like I wasn’t wanting to save him with every fiber of my being anyway. It’s also not the first time I’ve done it when he didn’t want me to.”

Derek smiled a genuine smile in return. “Let’s tell Sc….”

_“CODE BLUE. ICU. CODE BLUE. ICU.”_

Even without werewolf senses, Sam could hear the sound of a cardiac monitor alarming. He scrambled clumsily to his feet as Derek did the same. _Had they waited too late?_

Throwing wide the door, the pair were only a few steps ahead of the medical team coming to Dean’s bedside. Luckily, it was enough time for Scott’s eyes to lose their crimson light. He looked up at Sam, his fangs retracting with a pained expression. _I’m sorry_ , he mouthed to the Hunter.

Dean was sitting up, his hospital gown falling away from his chest as the EKG cables were strewn across the floor. The endotracheal tube was still connected to the alarming ventilator, though the tube, too, was lying several feet away from the hospital bed… where Dean had thrown it after pulling it from his throat.

“It’s okay,” Melissa McCall quickly said to the hospital personnel responding to the emergency. “He just woke up and extubated himself. He pulled off his electrodes. I’m getting him a face mask now, but his sats are holding.”

The doctor—Liam’s stepfather—pushed everyone out of the way while he assessed the patient, who “miraculously” seemed well on the way to a full recovery. Scott just watched quietly from the corner, almost shrinking back from everyone as though trying to fade from sight. When Sam moved towards him, the Alpha repeated his statement, this time with sound. “I’m sorry, Sam. I just couldn’t not….”

The words were cut off as the towering Hunter pulled him into an embrace so tight that Scott wasn’t entirely convinced wouldn’t break both of their spines. “Thank you.”

Realizing the reaction, Scott sighed in relief and fell into the hug. They just stood there, unmoving, as footsteps raced through the hallway. The werewolf recognized the scent instantly, smiling as Parrish ran in.

Seeing Dean awake and moving fine of his own volition—swatting away the doctors and nurses, to be exact—Jordan smiled. He had several paper bags in his hands that he set down on the bedside table. “The Sheriff thought you guys might be hungry, so he had me stop off and get some burgers.”

The joy of the situation was muddled when everyone slowly noticed Isaac staring at the Deputy. “Cam?”


	10. Understanding

Scott looked at Isaac with a perplexed expression as his mother was trying to urge her colleagues from the room before too many questions without answers arose. Dean was careful not to say too much until the hospital staff was gone, but he noted Melissa’s last name. The familiarity of the supernaturals in the room told him that she was in the know, so he hopped up from the bed, tossing the gown onto the floor and standing, bare-assed, as he grabbed his things and started pulling them on.

Isaac and Scott’s questions were tabled for a moment as Cora looked at her brother questioningly. “How is it healing him so fast?” she asked.

“I guess it’s something the angel did,” Derek speculated, noting that Dean’s wounds were not just healing quickly… they were gone. He was suddenly aware that he was staring at the naked man when his eyes caught the Hunter’s. The elder Winchester had been surveying the new faces—Cora, Isaac, and especially, Jackson. He merely smiled a knowing smile and chuckled, “Is there some requirement that everyone in your pack look like they just stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog?”

Derek blushed, and that reaction had half the room doing a double-take. “It’s Scott’s pack,” the Pureblood corrected.

“It’s _our_ pack—all of ours,” the Alpha corrected.

Sam was trying to talk to his brother, but Dean wasn’t paying much attention. Melissa McCall was trying to speak to him at the same time, so he was all but ignoring both. “I understand you’re healing faster or healed or whatever, but you need to be careful all the same. You were near death,” she finally said, a little louder than she intended.

“I appreciate the concern, but me checking out of here AMA as fast as possible is the best way for me to make sure I don’t call attention to your son and his friends,” he told her. “Besides, Cas worked his magic. I feel good as new.”

Sam grabbed his brother by the shoulders. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Cas wasn’t able to heal you.”

“But I remember hearing him right before…,” Dean protested.

Sam shook his head. “Your body was too far gone. There was no way to undo your body rejecting the transformation, so Castiel altered your body so that you wouldn’t reject it.”

Dean stared at his brother, dumbfounded. “Are you telling me that I’m a fucking _werewolf_?” he demanded, loud enough that even Isaac and Jordan had stopped staring at one another.

“Yes,” Sam winced, a reaction shared by Scott. Derek looked like he had gotten kicked in the gut. Cora and the others started to growl.

Realizing how he sounded, Dean’s jaw clinched. “Ease up, guys. It’s a lot to process at once, not the least of which is that my brother okayed me becoming Deucalion’s bitch,” he tried to smile, though the effort was forced. A moment of realization gripped him, and he stopped to think about it. “Wait a minute. I thought he couldn’t make Betas.”

Sam finally took a breath. Under the circumstances, his brother was taking it far better than expected. “He can’t… but Scott can.”

“I’m to blame,” Scott stepped forward. “Sam didn’t do this. I did it, without his consent.”

Sam was quick to interject his protest. “I wanted him to do it and was about to tell him, so if you’re going to be pissed at someone, it should be me.”

Derek shook his head. “No. It’s my fault. If I hadn’t been so blinded by vengeance and been so reckless, you wouldn’t have needed the bite to save you. That’s on me, not Scott and Sam.”

“Will everyone just shut up for a minute?” Dean growled in his usual human way. “I’m not pissed or blaming anyone. Am I happy about it? No, but what’s done is done. I’ll figure out a way to undo it, or I’ll have to learn to live with it.”

He walked over to Scott. “You’ve got balls, kid. I guess I owe you a thanks, but if you start barking orders at me—literally or figuratively—I’m going to put a silver slug in your face.” The room fell silent for a moment before Dean’s mouth upturned into a half-smile. “I’m kidding… mostly.”

Scott was the first to relax, and the rest of the room followed suit. That crisis passed, he focused on another. “Cam?” he asked Isaac. “As in your _brother_?”

“This is my brother,” Isaac nodded in disbelief. “Camden Lahey.”

 

Everyone met back at Derek’s loft, which begged a question in Sam’s mind that hadn’t occurred to him earlier. “I thought this place was empty when we came to town. It was according to public records,” he said to Derek.

The Pureblood nodded as he flipped the elevator switch. “Generators handle the power, keeping me off of the grid. You guys aren’t the first to come looking for me.”

Isaac took a seat on the sofa, the blood still drained from his face. Cora could feel the emotions wafting off of him in waves. She took a seat next to him and rubbed the small of his back while the others looked on. Derek watched the display with the concern one might expect from a big brother. Sam, for his part, was watching Derek. His curiosity was piqued.

“I can’t help but notice you’re not having the same reaction with Cora and Isaac as you did with Jackson and Isaac,” the Hunter noted. “Is that some biological thing from the wolf side? Relationships between males is frowned on because it won’t result in offspring or something?”

Derek was caught off-guard by that. Finally, he laughed—outright laughed. “You really overthink this. We have a lot of wolf traits, but we’re still people, too. Most were normal, everyday humans until a bite or scratch turned them into werewolves. We do the same things people do. Wolves in the wild, though, can exhibit a lot of behaviors we would consider homosexual.”

“But for the record,” the former Alpha continued, “my objections stemmed from the fact that I created both Isaac and Jackson. Two Betas created by the same Alpha are essentially siblings, so it’s an objection to incest, not sexual orientation. There would be no issue with Cora and Isaac, but I don’t like the thought of my baby sister dating anyone.”

Sam smiled. “That’s understandable. It’s awkward.”

“Speaking of awkward,” Derek began with a mutter as Parrish and the Sheriff entered, Stiles and Malia in tow. Those who knew both men just watched as Isaac and Jordan stared at one another for what seemed like hours.

 

Parrish was the one who finally broke the silent reverie. “My name is Jordan Parrish. I’m a deputy here in Beacon Hills, but I served in Afghanistan alongside your brother,” he told Isaac. “He was a good man.”

“No. You’re my brother, Cam,” Isaac glared.

Sheriff Stilinski stepped forward. “I can vouch for what he’s saying, Isaac. I ran a background check on him when came to work for me.”

Isaac reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a photograph. “This is the last picture my brother ever took,” he said. It showed a half-dozen men in desert camo military fatigues standing in front of a convoy. Jordan smiled, remembering the moment. “My brother Camden is fourth from the left. The man to his right is his best friend… Jordan Parrish.”

“Your identity should be easy enough to confirm,” Danny said, pushing past Jordan to grab Derek’s laptop. “I’ll just pull up the DNA you have on file at the station and cross-reference it with the military’s Bureau of Personal.”

Even Sam and Stiles were amazed at how nonchalant the hacker was. In minutes, he spun the screen around to reveal Jordan’s picture, along with the name “Jordan Parrish”. “I’m sorry, Isaac,” Jordan offered.

“So what is all this about?” Dean asked, walking over to Derek. Over the next half-hour, everyone recounted the mundane tales of Camden Lahey, who was KIA, and the supernatural exploits of Jordan Parrish. They told the brothers about the deputy being on the Dead Pool hit list, surviving the fire that Haigh had tried to kill him in, and the glowing eyes and super-strength Chris Argent had witnessed.

The more they talked, though, the more evident it was that Sam had something on his mind. “May I?” he asked Danny. Nodding, he passed the computer to the Hunter. After a few moments, Sam turned the computer around. It displayed the same portrait and vital statistics as before… but the name read “Camden Lahey”.

Everyone was more confused than ever as Sam announced, “I know what you are.”


	11. The Answer

“When I saw the security camera footage from outside the police station, I thought maybe a phoenix,” Sam began. “But phoenixes aren’t known to take human form, and then I realized something.”

Jordan was trying to wrap his head around what he was hearing, but it was clear that he was having difficulty. Lydia pulled away from Jackson to sit next to the deputy and hold his hand. The werewolf immediately tensed enough to be palpable, especially to the rest of the pack. It was Scott, in particular, that noticed.

Jackson wasn’t mad, as the Alpha had initially expected. He was hurt—resigned that Lydia had made her choice, and he wasn’t it. He couldn’t blame her. He’d run away and left her. He wanted to escape the memories of what he’d done as the Kanima, though he quickly learned that he could never run far enough. It plagued his dreams… every death… every night. On some level, he had expected Lydia to forget about him, but if he was being completely honest with himself, he always thought it would be Stiles. For whatever reason, the little dweeb had wormed his way into her heart. He hated to admit it, but spazzy, doesn’t know when to shut his mouth Stilinski grew on everyone. Even Jackson.

Scott started to take a half-step towards Jackson. Instinctively, he wanted to take away his pain, though it was emotional, not physical. Jackson saw the movement, and his eyes caught McCall’s. He didn’t say a word, at least not verbally. His expression was enough to halt the Alpha’s steps. Though it was clear to everyone that Jackson wasn’t the same guy who had left Beacon Hills, he was still Jackson enough that his pride wouldn’t stand for being comforted. Certainly not by Scott McCall.

“So what am I?” Parrish asked, unable to contain his anticipation.

Sam’s answer was short and to the point. “A jinn.”

“A djinn?” Dean repeated. “Have you lost it, Sammy? No tattoos. No drinking blood.”

Sam shook his head. “Not a _djinn_ —a _jinn_ ,” he explained.

The elder brother wasn’t following, and his frustration at that fact was evident. “Talk,” he growled, a sound reminiscent of his usual gruff demeanor but with a feral emphasis. It caught everyone off-guard… especially Dean.

“The lore, based upon the Qur’an, says that there are five types of jinn,” he explained, spelling the word. “When we were hunting the djinns, I learned about the other types. Marids, djinn, shaitan, jann, and—what Parrish is—the ifrit. They’re like demons formed from the primordial elements, though obviously not demons in the sense that we know them.”

Jordan shook his head. “None of this makes any sense. I was born. I had a human family.”

“I don’t understand the specifics. I just know that everything matches up with what I know. A fiery bird-shape—sometimes vulture-like, sometimes appearing as a dragon—super-strength, glowing eyes, and impervious to fire. The clincher, though, was the picture. Looking at your service record, you were killed near that Muslim ruin, which are sites Ifrit are known to safeguard.”

Scott pulled out his cell phone. “Now that we have a starting point, maybe Deaton can help.”

“Dean and I will stay here,” Derek nodded. “We need to see if the rest of his transformation is coming as quickly as his healing. If so, I have to teach him control before Deucalion gets here.” _Faster than anyone has ever learned it_ , he thought to himself. It was an unspoken fact that every werewolf in the room was all too aware of.

It didn’t take Scott long enough to relay the pertinent info to the emissary. Hanging up the phone, the Alpha looked at Jordan sympathetically. “Deaton wants us to bring you to him. He’s going to have to put you in a near-death state like he did with me, Allison, and Stiles to take you back to the moment that the world thinks Camden Lahey died.”

“Let’s do it,” Parrish said without hesitation.

Lydia squeezed his hand. “I’m coming with you.”

“So am I,” Isaac echoed. Cora said nothing, but the way she looked at the Beta made it clear that if he was going, so was she.

“Stiles, he wants you and I to come, too,” Scott told his best friend.

One eyebrow cocked up curiously. “ _O-kay_ ,” he said uncertainly. “Mind if I ask why?”

It was obvious that Scott was reluctant to share the next part. “He wants us to go with him, because we’ve been on the other side before and can help guide him back.”

Stiles’ jaw dropped. “Sure, why not? Let’s go die again. We’re getting old hat at it,” he spat sarcastically. “Maybe we can get some tips from the Winchesters here. Apparently, they’ve got it on lock.”

“No way,” the Sheriff and Deputy said in unison. The younger man shook his head. “As much as I want answers, I’m not risking anyone’s life here—certainly not the Alpha of the pack that’s our only hope of stopping a psychotic werewolf, and certainly not my boss’ very human son.”

Sheriff Stilinksi’s face showed that he agreed with the sentiment… but he was conflicted. His son, however, was not. “This isn’t your choice—either of yours,” Stiles replied. “We’ve done it before, and we’ve made it back. I already brought a darkness back once, so anything that doesn’t shackle me with a malevolent trickster fox-spirit will be a walk in the park. No offense, Kira.”

The kitsune merely smiled, returning the boy’s own gesture. “None taken.”

“We did it before to save you, Mrs. McCall, and Argent,” Stiles reminded his father. “We need to do this for Jordan. Him knowing who and what he is gives him an edge and might make him a weapon in the fight that will be here in—oh, I don’t know— _TWO DAYS_! That knowledge might save his life or someone else. I won’t have innocent blood on my hand because I’m scared, which I am.”

The Sheriff opened his mouth to protest again, but he saw in his son’s eyes that the decision was made. As much as he wanted to think he could protect Stiles, the one person he absolutely could not protect Stiles from was himself. “Fine, but I’m going to be there this time,” he grumbled. He saw Parrish start to object, but he held up a hand to silence him. “If you haven’t learned anything else about my son by now, know that he’s as stubborn as his mother and father combined. He says he’s doing this, and nothing either of us can say is going to stop him, so I might as well just go so I can worry on my terms.”

“Me, too,” Malia chimed in.

“I’ll need you both,” Stiles smiled. “Having the two of you there will make it easier to find my way back.”

Scott nodded in agreement. He wrapped his hand around Kira’s. “I need you and Mom there as well.”

“What about me?” Parrish asked.

Isaac didn’t miss a beat. “I’ll help you find your way back. Even if you don’t remember, you’re my brother, and I’m not about to lose you again.”

Parrish didn’t know what to say. He still didn’t believe that he was Camden Lahey, but the young werewolf’s devotion was admirable. He wasn’t about to crush that hope. He met Isaac’s stare so intently that he hadn’t noticed Lydia squeezing his hand more tightly. “I’ll help you, too. If anyone can tell you which way _doesn’t_ lead to death, it’s me,” she smiled.

The banshee argument was a good one, but no one with eyes thought that was the only reason—least of all, Jackson. “I’ll stay here with Derek and Dean,” he announced, turning to walk towards the window… so no one could see the expression on his face.

Scott didn’t need to see it. He _felt_ it. If there was more time, he would talk to his old rival, but time was the one thing they definitely did not have. “Sam, Deaton asked if you would come, too, since you know more about the ifrit than the rest of us.”

The Hunter nodded, and with practiced silence, Dean tossed his brother the keys to the Impala without discussion. He didn’t know about this near-death state they were talking about, but he got the impression it wasn’t going to be a quick process. The sooner they started, the better.

“Do you want me to help with Dean?” Ethan asked Derek.

Derek’s expression remained carefully neutral. “No. Jackson and I will handle it.” The former Alpha twin seemed relieved, and his boyfriend was grateful. Most understood that the Pureblood had all but told them to spend what might be their last days together.


	12. The Fires of Memory

“Hey, Lahey!” a voice called, and Parrish realized the voice was talking to him. He remembered Deaton putting himself, Scott, and Stiles into the ice-cold baths and submerging them, but the recollection was growing dimmer by the second. It was hard to separate what was from what is.

The voice called out to him again, and it shook him from the almost hypnotic haze he felt trapped in. He looked over to see another person—the one from Isaac’s photo. His eyes drifted to the name stitched onto his clothing… _Parrish_. But it wasn’t his face. None of this made any sense.

“You alright, Cam?” the soldier asked Jordan/Camden again. “You seem out of it today.”

Shaking it off, he offered a smile. “I’m good.”

“Glad to hear it, princess,” another man barked—the one on the far left of the photo, and the C.O., if his rank was any indicator. “We’ve got a convoy coming through with some civilians the allied warlords want us to smuggle out of the country in exchange for their aid. They made it from Kandahar to Tarin Kowt without incident, and I want us to continue that trend. We need to get them across the Helmand to Bamian. From there, another group will get them the rest of the way to Uzbekistan. Am I clear, ladies?”

“YES, SIR!” came the reply in unison.

The soldiers fell in and boarded the escort vehicles, with Jordan/Camden and Parrish in the lead jeep. “Keep your eyes peeled,” Parrish told him. “Mujahideen from Kabul have been hitting us all over lately. The damned mountains make reliable aerial surveillance all but impossible, so no one’s even trying. That means they can pretty much pepper every inch of the country with impunity.”

Camden/Jordan nodded. He was starting to remember this. It felt like a lifetime ago, but of one thing he was certain—almost his entire unit was going to die today. He couldn’t recall the specifics, though, so he remained extra-vigilant. Perhaps that was the reason he was first to see the movement among the dunes. Pointing it out, the convoy came to a stop near some ancient Sufist ruins, and he hopped out to investigate.

After several moments, no one found any signs of movement. The tension began to drain away in lieu of hope for a dull assignment. Things relaxed enough that one of the local guides who was traveling with them offered to take a picture. Camden/Jordan stood next to Parrish as the photo Isaac carried was immortalized. Most had climbed back into their vehicles when Camden/Jordan saw the movement again. The commanding officer wasn’t convinced that it was anything but a trick of the light, so he told the pair of friends to take a quick look and catch up to them.

Watching the convoy disappear into the distance, Camden/Jordan and Parrish, rifles in hand, began stalking through the sands. Finally, he saw the shape he had glimpsed. It was a small girl. She began crying and pleading with the pair in Arabic. Camden/Jordan wasn’t yet as fluent as he would become, but he got the gist of it. _“Please do not destroy this place. It is sacred to us.”_

With a gentle smile, he assured her that they had no intentions of doing anything of the sort. The girl smiled in return, but both expressions faded when an explosion shook the ground and echoed in the distance. The soldiers hunkered down reflexively, looking at the smoke rising ahead. Rebels emerged from hiding and descended upon their position. The leader looked at the girl flanked by the soldiers and raised his weapon not at them, but her. _“You would let these infidels live? Then you can die with them!”_

He opened fire, and Parrish threw himself in front of the barrage while Camden/Jordan could do nothing but watch helplessly as he fell to the ground alongside him, the bullets riddling both of their bodies. That’s when he saw it. The girl’s eyes glowed a brilliant orange and their attackers burst into flame. _“You have shown respect, mercy, and bravery. I would grant you a wish for your service, as my ancestors of old once did. Name that which you want most.”_

In their near-death states, neither man stopped to question the scene or their sanity. Instead, they gave a visceral answer borne of instinct and desperation. Each begged that the other—their best friend—be spared. _“Matters of life and death are not as easy for my kind as they once were. Your vitality ebbs even as you draw your final breaths. I can save but one body, passing along the fires of immortality that have sustained me for millennia.”_

The girl’s form burned away, and an enormous bird of prey, composed of the purest flame, embraced Camden Lahey. _“Both souls, proud and noble, will endure within, but the world will see but one. Speak thy name, and I will make it thusly.”_

Cam laid a hand upon the chest of his best friend and brother-in-arms, the heart within now still. “Jordan Parrish,” he said.

_“Then Camden Lahey is dead to all except those who would truly know the soul within.”_

And the voice was no more.

 

Parrish gasped for breath, suddenly pointedly reminded of the frigid waters in which he had been submerged for hours. His pants clung heavily to his legs, and the water clung to his bare chest in semisolid clumps. On either side of him sat Lydia and Isaac, obviously shocked at his sudden return to consciousness. The relief was evident on their face, and Jordan, remembering who he was, grabbed his brother into a tight embrace. “I’m so sorry, Isaac.”

“Cam?” Isaac cried into the shirtless man’s shoulder hesitantly.

Lydia, meanwhile, whispered a tentative, “Jordan?”

Parrish smiled, leaning against the werewolf who helped him from the ice bath. “Yes to both. Jordan Parrish. Camden Lahey. They’re both equally me,” he tried to explain. “It’s confusing.”

“I’ll say,” Scott agreed, leaning against his own tub while his mother wrapped a towel around him.

Jordan was now as confused as everyone else. “You were there?”

“Yeah. I was,” the Alpha smiled. “It’s like I was an actor in a role. I was one of the guys in your unit—in that picture.”

Jordan smiled back, turning to see Stiles’ body shuddering violently. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Was it the same for you?”

“N-not exactly,” Stiles stammered. “I was sitting on the floor in front of the TV like I did when I was younger. I was watching what happened to you on the screen. I turned back to see if Dad was watching, but he was passed out. When I looked back, the television had become the Nemeton.”

The Sheriff shifted uncomfortably, knowing that his son didn’t mean he was asleep in the recliner. Stiles meant he was on some drunken bender. “Any idea what of that means, Deaton?”

“Not yet,” the emissary admitted. “Anything after that, Stiles?”

The boy ran the towel through his hair, trying desperately to dry off and warm up. “I turned back around to tell Dad, but instead, it was my Mom from when I was small. She was patting her lap, telling me to climb up so she could tell me a story. That old book of fairy tales was next to her.”

“Claudia?” the Sheriff all but whispered, a pained smile of mournful recollection reminding him of both the love and loss. “I haven’t thought about that book in years. Every time she put you to bed, she’d read you a story.”

Deaton was silent a moment. “It’s entirely likely that Stiles was drawn to the Nemeton’s energies like a moth to a flame. As a mortal, he has less natural resistance to its influence, plus he succumbed to it before with the nogitsune.”

With no further interpretations to be made of the teen’s dreams, Jordan went into detail about his newly-recovered recollections. Everyone listened intently, especially Isaac, who was grinning from ear-to-ear.

“I don’t understand why my picture was in both files,” Jordan confessed.

Sam explained his thinking. “The ifrit that gave its power to you was more powerful than the djinn we’ve encountered, but in our dealings with them, if someone’s mind has reason to doubt the reality they’ve created, you can find holes in it.”

“So because you knew to look for a personnel record with his picture and the name Camden Lahey, you were able to find it?” Danny asked.

Sam nodded. “Essentially, yeah.”

“So what do we even call you?” Malia asked in her usual blunt way.

Jordan smiled. “Like I said, they’re both me, so you can call me either. Everyone but my little brother knows me as Jordan, which is what the world knows me as, so that’s probably the easiest for everyone but him. Isaac, just be careful in public.”

“I don’t care what I call you, just as long as I have you back,” Isaac smiled, eyes still moist with tears of joy.

“So any ideas what an ifrit is capable of?” Ethan asked, focused more on the pragmatic aspect of the jinn’s presence in the battle to come.

Deaton pulled an ancient text from the bookshelf. “After your phone call about Sam’s speculation, I did some research. Based on what I was able to find, at the moment, I believe enhanced strength and imperviousness to at least fire, though I would guess all harm if even half of the legends hold true. In time, I believe mastery over fire will be possible. As for the ability to warp reality, only time will tell. I’ve seen no mention of ifrit creating other ifrit outside of interbreeding, so we’re in uncharted territory.”

“I’m just happy to have my memories back—all of my memories,” the jinn said. “How long were we down, anyway?”

Melissa was quick to answer. “Eighteen hours. If we’re working on the same assumption of a timetable, Deucalion’s pack could be here as soon as tomorrow.”

Lydia lifted her eyes from where they were fixed upon the ground. “They will be. I can feel the death that will come.”

Her ominous premonition destroyed the mood that had filled the room just seconds before. The room fell silent as the grave. Finally, the Sheriff mirthfully suggested, “Why don’t all of you head home and spend time with your loved ones? You need your rest if you’re going to kick the crap out of an Alpha pack tomorrow.”

One by one, the pairs left the clinic—Scott and Kira, Danny and Ethan, Jordan and Isaac, and Sam and Cora (going to see Dean and Derek, respectively). Stiles started to say something to Malia, but the werecoyote backed away from him. “I don’t want to think about you dying. If I’m with you tonight, that’s all I will think about. I’m going to hunt.”

She left without another word, leaving her boyfriend with his mouth wide open. He finally realized Lydia was still standing there, awkwardly trying not to eavesdrop. He smiled with his goofy, unaffected grin. “How come you didn’t go with Sam and Cora? I’m sure Jackson would love to see you.”

“Because it wouldn’t be fair to him,” the banshee said gently. “I thought I still loved him, but I don’t. I still care for him—I always will—but it’s not like that anymore. Right now, I think my presence around him would complicate things for both of us.”

Stiles understood. “Besides which, you have a thing for a certain jinn with multiple personality disorder,” he chuckled.

“Is it that obvious?” she blushed.

Sheriff Stilinski was the one who answered that. “Only to anyone with eyes,” he smiled. “And it’s clear he feels the same. He has for a while now, but I think he was waiting until the time was right.”

“Until I was over Jackson?” she asked.

Melissa McCall smiled. “Until you were eighteen, more likely. Not that he’s that much older, but Jordan strikes me as something of a Boy Scout.”

Now that the conversation was completely awkward, Stiles shifted gears. “Sooo, want to come over to my house and watch a movie, eat some popcorn, and just generally try to forget the world that may end tomorrow?”

“Fine. You can even pick the movie,” Lydia smirked. “But no cartoons—that includes anime—and nothing with ‘Star’ in the title.”

Stiles grinned. Silently, he acquiesced, and the pair left together. Deaton had begun cleaning up, leaving the two parents alone in the room together. “How do they keep it all together when I’m falling apart?” Melissa asked.

“You’re asking me?” the Sheriff replied.

Melissa walked over to him and buried her head against his chest, he wrapped his arms around her, and that’s how they stood for the longest time.

 

Stiles was lost in thought when Lydia elbowed him. “Hey, if I’m having to lose two plus hours of my life watching this horrible movie, you could at least suffer with me,” Lydia chastised him.

“ _Prometheus_ is an amazing movie. Ridley Scott is a genius, laying the epic framework for the Aliens movies,” Stiles protested.

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Acid on the face kills you, your head swells, and you come back as some super mutant zombie with enough brains to go back to the ship. There you curl up like a bug, destroying your body in the process, and manage to show up as a life reading despite the fact that, well, _you’re dead_.   You kill everyone with eyes that miraculously see after said acid to the face. I couldn’t even tell who died, and I didn’t even care,” she began. “It was completely pointless and stupid. Kind of like ignoring the WORM COMING OUT OF YOUR EYE!”

Sitting back, she folded her arms across her chest. “Should I mention the octo-baby and abortion? There are currently four hundred and seventy-two things I see wrong with this movie from a cinematic or story aspect, and we’re what? Halfway through the movie? I have an IQ of 170. Do you really want me to ruin this for you? Because I can.”

“I yield! I yield!” Stiles laughed, holding his hands up in surrender. He hopped up and took the disc out of the Blu-Ray. “I’ll find something else.”

She leered at him. “Make it good, or I’ll make you cry.”

“I have little doubt,” he chuckled, walking over to where the movies were. As he perused the titles, his mind wandered. He walked over and reached up to the highest bookshelf. He pulled down the book of fairy tales that neither he nor his father had moved since his mother died. It was still painful, even this long after.

He blew the dust off of the cover, and it filled his nose and throat. Coughing and sneezing, he dropped it. A small envelope that had been snugly fit between some of its pages spilled out. On it was a single word… _Stiles_.


	13. Base Instincts

Dean roared in frustration. His chest heaved from the exertion, and sweat was dripping from pores he didn’t even know he had.

“Again,” Derek said calmly.

Dean started to protest, but he knew the Pureblood was right. They’d been at this for nearing twenty-four hours, and the Hunter was still having trouble exhibiting the degree of control he’d hoped to by now. It didn’t help that the smart-mouthed runway model was looking on in smug satisfaction, like he was better than him. He fought the urge to respond, instead taking a centering breath as he focused on Derek, not as Derek, but as a target.

It took only a split second. Dean knew his eyes had shifted, because his vision had changed with it. His face felt like he hadn’t shaved in a month, and his fingertips felt as though someone had shoved razors through them. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation in the least, and he was fighting to retain some degree of control. The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth, and he knew that his fangs had pierced his lips and possibly sliced his tongue. He ran his tongue past his sharpened teeth, though, and he felt nothing. In the back of his mind, he was able to process that his healing factor had already taken care of the problem.

He threw himself at Derek with reckless abandon. He gave into the rage and it blinded him—it made him unpredictable. The ferocity was unlike anything the former Alpha had ever seen. Even Liam’s Intermittent Explosive Disorder felt like child’s play. It was taking everything Derek had to keep Dean from connecting. If something didn’t give soon, one of them was going to get _very_ hurt.

Surprisingly, his salvation came in the form of Jackson, who sprang from the sidelines to grab him from behind with two handfuls of shirt. He caught Dean by surprise, so the Hunter wasn’t able to shift his weight before he was tossed a few dozen yards away and into a pile of leaves. Jackson’s eyes glowed blue and he bared his own fangs and claws. He growled in warning.

That just pissed Dean off. He got to his feet, clearly intent on coming for the two werewolves. Derek placed a hand on Jackson’s shoulder and stepped in front of him. He turned back and looked at his Beta, shaking his head. The one-time Kanima let the wolf fade and gave the Pureblood a dismissive look as if to say _“Your funeral.”_

Dean didn’t care which target he went for. Whichever one was closer would do, so he crossed the distance separating him from Derek in the blink of an eye, expecting Derek to throw him into a tree or onto his back. When he didn’t, the new werewolf found his body screeching to a halt. No wolf. No werewolf. Just Derek… Derek who had his head tilted to the side, exposing his neck.

In a fraction of a second, Dean was Dean again. “What the fuck, Derek?!?” he demanded. “I could have _killed_ you!”

“I knew you wouldn’t,” Derek said calmly.

Jackson snorted derisively. “That makes one of us.”

“Shut up, Jackson,” Derek growled.

Jackson just smiled a shit-eating grin. “You’re not the boss of me.”

Derek’s first response was to lash out, but that was the old Derek. This was an entirely different Derek from the one Jackson knew, and retaliation would be what he expected. So Derek softened his expression and calmly said to the Beta, “Jackson, _please_. I’m trying to do better by him than I did by you.” He watched the young man’s face recoil with surprise. Without meaning to, he added insult to injury. “Thank you for your help.”

It wasn’t the same Jackson Derek knew, either. Instead of a snarky facial expression or a comeback (witty or otherwise), he got a simple nod of acknowledgement.

“Okay, Master Po, you want to tell me why you were so positive Grasshopper wasn’t going to snatch the pebbles from your sack?” Dean grimaced.

Derek nodded. “Because it’s not in you to kill an innocent. Maybe it was once, but your hands are stained with too much blood, and the last thing you want to do is add to it.”

Dean opened his mouth to say something, but he had nothing.

“I was listening while you were talking,” Derek told him, a smile forming on his lipes. “Even though you were doing a _lot_ of it.”

Dean grunted. “Well, in my defense, that’s normally Sam’s job, and I’m the quiet, broody one. With you there, I wanted to break up the monotony.”

Derek laughed at that, and Jackson rolled his eyes. “So how does any of this help?” the latter werewolf asked.

“Because he was able to rein it in,” Derek pointed out. “He just had to figure out how. We all needed an anchor originally. For me, it was the triskelion. For you, it was Lydia and the key.”

Jackson looked away. “Good thing I can handle it myself,” he muttered quietly, though since the only two people in earshot were werewolves, he might as well have shouted it. Derek knew exactly what Jackson was talking about. He had seen Lydia with Jordan. Hell, Dean knew it, and he didn’t know a thing about their history.

“You told me you were controlled by the Mark of Cain,” Derek said to Dean, not really sure what to say to his former Beta. “It filled you with a bloodlust that could only be sated my becoming a cold-blooded killer, and yet you managed to resist it. Are you really telling me that you could beat that but not this? Something a bunch of teenagers managed to overcome?”

Jackson cut his eyes towards Derek, ready to say something, but his former Alpha already had a gaze leveled at him. It was apologetic, and it stole the ire from Jackson, who simply nodded in understanding.

“Fine, you’ve made your point,” Dean smirked. “So it’s all in my head. How does knowing that translate to overcoming it?”

Derek turned back to Dean. “Like he was saying, you need that anchor right now. Someone who speaks to your humanity more than the adrenaline speaks to your wolf. When someone becomes a new Beta, we always teach them to draw upon the wolf’s power, because they need that. In time, though, experience overcomes instinct, or more to the point, the line between the two blurs.”

Dean rolled his eyes. Clearly frustrated, his voice cut through the night air. “Will you please stop speaking in riddles? I can barely concentrate as is.”

“I’m not trying to,” Derek offered. “What I’m saying is that you don’t need the wolf. You’re a Hunter, and based on how many years you’ve been at it alone, you’re _damned_ good at it. Don’t surrender to it, just draw on it. Use that anchor to loosen the top, not put the top back on.”

Dean was quiet. He considered Derek’s words. He thought about the literal and figurative bloodlusts he had known as vampire, demon, and bearer of the Mark. He thought about the monster Sam was without a soul. He thought about the face of every son of a bitch he’d gladly killed, and then thought about the face of everyone he wished he hadn’t.

When he lifted his eyes at Derek, they glowed blue. He outstretched his fingers and urged his nails to grow. With a voice even deeper than normal, he told Derek, “Okay. Let’s do this.”

Derek smiled. “Jackson, give me a hand here,” he began, adding a “please”.

Jackson didn’t protest, and the two veteran werewolves let loose on the “pup”. This time, though, the newborn wolf wasn’t in the mix. He was the Hunter, using a quarter-century of experience. No base instincts, just trained reflexes. He was able to block and counter everything they threw at him, eventually tossing Jackson to the air where he landed with a sickening thud. It happened so quickly that Derek hadn’t realized it in time to stop the swipe of his claws towards Dean’s shoulder. The Hunter, however, grabbed his wrist and stopped it. He smiled at Derek as the vestiges of his wolf faded.

Releasing his hold on Derek, he walked over to Jackson, who was pushing himself up into a sitting position. Dean held out his hand. “You okay, kid?” he asked.

Jackson swatted the hand away and rose to his feet. Dean stepped back and held up his hands in resignation. “Nothing bruised but my ego,” Jackson spat. After a moment, he smiled… then he laughed. “Okay, maybe my ass, too.”

Dean and Derek both smiled. The latter couldn’t help but marvel at how different this Jackson was from the one who’d left for London. The pangs of guilt he felt for when he and Peter had killed him as the Kanima intensified, so he tried to focus on something else.

“You did well,” he told Dean. “ _Very_ well. I take it you were able to use your anchor?”

Dean chuckled. “Yeah. Just me and my own little psychological bottle-opener.”

“Glad thinking of your brother did the trick,” Derek acknowledged.

Dean had averted his eyes, but he raised them up to meet Derek’s. “It wasn’t him I was thinking about it.” _Shit_. He couldn’t believe he had just said that. He was having an even harder time wrapping his head around the fact that it was true.

_“Oh,”_ was all Derek could say.


	14. Baby Steps

Lydia stood from where she was sitting on the couch. Walking over next to Stiles, she wrapped her arms around his. “What is it?”

Stiles couldn’t speak for a moment. He opened his mouth, but for once, nothing came out. Clearing the frog from his throat, it was still scratchy when he replied, “That’s my mother’s handwriting.”

“Are you going to read it?” she asked after several long, awkward moments.

Stiles shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to read it?” she offered.

He shrugged again. “I don’t know.”

Lydia wasn’t sure what to say, so she picked up the book from where Stiles had dropped it after he found the letter. She was fairly certain that he didn’t even realize he had done it. Some of the pages had become bent, so she tried to straighten it out when she saw something written inside. “Stiles?”

He didn’t acknowledge her.

“STILES!”

The familiar harsh tones of the banshee’s voice broke his paralysis. “Huh? What?”

“Is this what I think it is?” she asked, showing him the handwritten note.

_Claudia,_

_May your son enjoy these tales as much as my own children did. You will be an amazing mother, my dear friend._

_Always, Talia_

Stiles just stared at it. How had he never noticed? How had his Dad? He knew the answer to both. His mother was the only one who read from it, and neither of them had touched it since the day she died. “Talia?” he read hesitantly. “As in Talia _Hale_?”

“I don’t know,” Lydia admitted. “I don’t know of any other Talias in Beacon Hills.”

Stiles started breathing funny, and instantly, she recognized an impending panic attack. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t force the air to make any sounds. He couldn’t hear what she was saying to him, and he had some dim awareness that he might get another kiss from her. Once upon a time, he would have killed for that, but if Malia came home and caught her scent on him, there would be an entirely different sort of killing. Strangely, that thought amused him. The amusement relaxed him, and he was able to get a grip on himself, forcing himself to inhale and exhale in a measured cadence.

“Stiles, what is it?” she repeated, calming down now that he was calm.

He pointed to the numbers scribbled beneath the note. “Look at the year. That’s not when I was born.”

“But you were born in April,” she reminded him. “If she gave your Mom the book soon after she got pregnant….”

Lydia’s voice trailed off, because she didn’t need the genius IQ to see where he was going with this. The year in the book wasn’t just the year preceding Stiles’ birth—it was a year before that.

He pulled out his phone and snapped a picture. He added it into a text to Derek. When Lydia tried to say something to him, he shut out her voice. In seconds, he got his reply, but the answer only led to a thousand more questions.

_“Yes, that’s my mother’s handwriting. She knew your Mom?”_

Stiles wanted to say he wanted to ask him that, but he shoved the phone back into his pocket. Any conversation with Derek was forgotten as he tore open the yellowed envelope. Lydia didn’t try to get his attention with words. She just eased him onto the couch and sat next to him.

_My precious boy,_

_If you are reading this, then I am gone. I feel my mind and my body slipping away from me, and no matter how much I want to watch you grow into the exceptional young man that I know you will, I do not think I will see it with my own eyes. Instead, those of another will watch over you where mine cannot._

_I have made a great many choices in my life, and more than a few I regret. My choice to marry your father and have you was, without a doubt, the surest thing I have ever done. Whatever happens to me now, I will meet it secure in that love for you._

_Love always,_

_Mom_

His hands trembled as he started to fold the paper over itself. The writing was haphazard, and Stiles knew that it had been towards the end of Claudia Stilinski’s life, in one of her more lucid moments, that she had put pen to paper. Lydia finally took the letter from him, replacing it in the envelope.

“What do you want to do?” she asked.

He took the envelope back, placing it in the pocket of his jacket. He’d almost snatched it away from Lydia, but if she noticed, she let it slide. She could only imagine what he was going through, so she was willing to indulge him. “I need to talk to my Dad and to Scott’s Mom. I want to see what he knows about my mother and Derek’s mother, and I want to see what Mrs. McCall can find out about my mother being pregnant almost a year before me.”

 

Heading over to Scott’s, he found the pair sitting at table drinking coffee. As Stiles recounted what he’d learned about Claudia’s dealings with Talia, it was evident that his father knew nothing about it. “I never knew they were friends,” he confessed. “She never even mentioned her name to me.”

While father and son discussed, Lydia sent a text to Jordan. _“I need a favor. Don’t ask any questions. Come up with something to get the Sheriff back to the station for a while.”_

She wasn’t entirely sure that Parrish had gotten the message, but then the Sheriff’s phone rang. He answered it, excusing himself for a moment before coming back. “We’ll talk about this later,” the Sheriff said, grabbing his jacket before heading out.

“Do you know anything about Stiles’ mother having another kid?” Lydia blurted out the moment the coast was clear.

Melissa was taken aback by the girl’s blunt line of questioning. “No,” she answered honestly.

“Mrs. McCall, can you help me find out?” Stiles asked, explaining about the date Talia had written in the book. Reluctantly, she agreed.

 

Once they were at the hospital, Melissa skulked around surreptitiously. As a head nurse, she had keys to get into medical records and could come and go without arousing questions. Doing so with two teenagers in tow was another matter entirely. Stiles’ ADHD was being magnified by his anxiety, so she had barely been in the file cabinet two seconds before he was twitching nervously. “Well?”

“Stiles, honey, calm down,” Melissa told him sympathetically. “These records are old and haven’t been scanned in yet, so it’s not like I can pull them up on the computer. I actually need a second to read them.”

Stiles reached over and grabbed the file from her. Lydia snatched it away from him. “Do you know what you’re looking for?” she chastised him. “She does. _LET… HER… READ_.”

Melissa smiled and went back to perusing the documents. After a few moments, the change in her expression was readable enough that it was obvious she found something. “What is it?” Stiles asked impatiently.

“ _Stiles_ ,” Lydia warned again.

Melissa was still reading as she explained. “There’s no record of your Mom giving birth in this hospital to anyone but you,” she began, and Stiles looked as though someone had just kicked him in the gut. “But I’m reading the OB/GYN note from when you were born. Her H&P lists her as G2, P1.”

Stiles was freaking out, his impatience sending him over the edge. “Are we playing Battleship? What does that mean?”

“Her history and physical upon admission says Gravida 2, Para 1. That means two pregnancies, one delivery,” she told him.

Stiles understood. “I was her second delivery.”

Melissa nodded. Lydia placed a reassuring hand on Stiles’ arm. “Is there anything else?”

“The obstetrician says Claudia first came to see him after some menstrual bleeding,” she read.

Lydia’s face was a mask of questions. “Why is that significant? What’s so noteworthy about her getting her period?”

“Argh,” Stiles groaned. “Do we really need to know if my mother was having a heavy flow day?”

Both women turned to glare at him, and he shrank back. Melissa continued. “She was surprised to have her period again so soon after giving birth. She didn’t know she was pregnant with you yet.”

Lydia’s encyclopedic brain kicked into overdrive. “Were you breast-fed?” she asked Stiles.

Stiles paled. “Really? _Really?_ We have to go there?”

“Answer the question,” Lydia smirked at him.

Stiles acted like he was going to vomit. “Fine,” he managed, as though chewing back bile. "I don't think so."

“So the usual forty-five days is out the window,” Lydia said to Mrs. McCall.

Melissa nodded. “It could be as soon as three weeks after. There’s no real way for us to get any more info from here, though. We need to figure out where she gave birth.”

“Mom got pregnant with me on their honeymoon,” Stiles protested. “So you’re telling me she had another kid _weeks_ before she and my Dad got married? What is this? Happy Days? Chuck goes upstairs to get a basketball and never comes down again? Why did Dad never say anything?”

The rest of the overhead lights in the room were turned on, and Sheriff Stilinski was standing in the doorway. “Because he didn’t know,” he said.


	15. Life Changes

Sam watched Derek and Cora rush past him so fast that it caused him to do a double-take. “What was that about?” he asked his brother.

"He's freaked out," Dean grunted flatly.

The younger Winchester understood that. "Makes sense," he commented. "He barely survived a fight with Deucalion and what? Four Alphas? And when it started, he _was_ an Alpha. Now he's coming with a dozen. He'd be crazy not to be stressed by all this. Hell, _I_ 'm worried. We've seen how dangerous one Alpha can be. This is all uncharted territory for even us, and you weren't a werewolf the last time."

Dean gave an exasperated sigh.   A deaf man could have read it in the body language.

Sam quirked a curious eyebrow. "What is it?"

"He's freaked out because I'm pretty sure I just hit on him," the elder Winchester replied, his back to the other man.

Sam's face betrayed his shock. "Um?" was all he could manage.

His brother wheeled to face him. "You scored a 174 on your LSAT, and all you can come up with is 'Um?'"

"Pretty much," Sam admitted with a nod. "Look, I'm not judging, but I'm confused as Hell. I mean, to my knowledge, your entire, _expansive_ track record has been exclusively of the female persuasion."

Dean's expression carried a very clear message of _No Shit_. "Tell me something I don't know."

"Have you ever...?"

Dean's face almost recoiled. " _No!_ " It wasn't that the prospect was appalling. It was that his brother thought he would have kept something like that from him after all these years.

"Look, Dean, I'm not judging, it's just...," Sam began.

Dean growled. "You already said that, and stop getting all Dr. Phil on me. I don't care about that. I've just never swung that way, and the fact that it's even a realistic proposition in my mind is freaking me out as much as it is him because you wanna talk uncharted territory?"

"Are you sure?" Sam asked, drawing a blank on a better line of questioning.

Dean glowered at him. "I was checking him out, Sammy!"

"Are you sure it's not just...?"

Dean's glare intensified. "If the words 'Are you sure' come out of your mouth again, I'm gonna rip your throat out. With my teeth."

"So that's a yes, then," Sam said, trying not to smile. "I just thought maybe it was some sort of appreciation for his physique or something. I'm not attracted to him, but even I can admit the guy's in ridiculous shape with looks to match."

Dean chuckled. "You sure you don't have a little crush on him, too?"

"This isn't about me, Romeo," Sam smirked. "We need to find out what the transformation has done to your sexuality."

His brother bristled. "My sexuality is alive and well and very much still in the skirt-chasing camp. I'm not having these thoughts about all guys... just Derek."

"Okay, but this isn't a question any Hunter lore can answer, so we need a werewolf expert," Sam pointed out calmly.

 

Their search for a werewolf expert was an easy one—with Derek obviously _not_ an option, it was a question of asking a teenaged Alpha (which Dean quickly squashed) or the Emissary. Pulling up in front of the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic, the brothers went in to talk to Deaton. The veterinarian was tending to a German Shepherd, who growled at Dean as they entered.

Dean's eyes flashed blue and he growled back. The dog quickly backed away, earning a scowl from the druid. "Sorry," Dean offered quietly.

"What can I do for you boys?" he asked, though he couldn't have been more than ten years older than the elder Hunter.

After a lengthy period of hemming and hawing, Dean managed to skirt the issue until both other men were exhausted and frustrated. Sam finally rescued him from the uncomfortable topic and did the talking. Deaton listened intently without reaction.

"It's extremely rare, but not entirely unheard of," the Emissary began. "Contrary to popular belief and counter to the behavior of most non-Pureblood werewolves, changes in rank—Alpha to Beta and back again—happen frequently in wolf packs. The changes in leadership are seldom fatal."

Dean was growing impatient. "That doesn't explain why I've got the hots for a guy for the first time in my life."

"As I was saying," Deaton smiled, "along with these changes in leadership comes a trade-off in dominant and submissive behaviors. That give and take often becomes the basis of a long-term relationship. Wolves already demonstrate a capacity to be attracted to a mate of the same sex in preference over those of the opposite gender, and as the human side can obviously show the same proclivities, there's no reason to think this wouldn't occur in werewolves. I suspect the only reason it doesn't happen more often in those around here is that they're teenagers—their hormones are already in flux, so they don't understand a difference in their biological desires to satisfy their physical urges and their emotional needs for companionship from their peers. You and Derek are older, so convention isn't shaping your perception."

Dean was flabbergasted. " _MATE?_ "

"My brother's always been of the straight as an arrow variety," Sam jumped in. "Emotionally, he's probably more stunted than those teenagers."

Deaton smiled. "It would appear that is not as true as either of you thought."

"So you're saying I'm gonna be some BDSM werewolf?" Dean grimaced. That caught even Sam off guard.

Deaton laughed and shook his head. "Hardly. I'm saying that as both of you are former Alphas, you share a kinship and understanding that might have been simply a friendship if one of you were human. Your wolves, however, are drawn to one another."

“What do you mean 'former Alphas'?" Dean asked. "I just got turned into David Naughton this week."

The Emissary nodded. "But your behavior screams former Alpha, even without the wolf. A take-charge kind of guy. A natural leader, but I suspect a one-time follower... likely to your father. As time has gone on, I suspect that you have begun to take a backseat to your brother more and more, trusting him to make the right choices when you felt you couldn't or shouldn't. It's the same Derek has done over time with Scott."

Sam snorted in derision, but he saw the look in his brother's eyes. And when Dean spoke, he knew Deaton was right. "So how long am I going to be playing for this team?"

"When male wolves mate with females, it's usually for the purpose for breeding. Though they may be monogamous, they can also have many partners, trading one for the next." Alan was hesitant to continue. "When male wolves mate with one another, it's not just a primal need to procreate. It's about a bond between them that's stronger than that—stronger than even pack."

Dean had a sinking feeling he knew the answer. "So what you're saying is...?"

"You'll have urges to be with women—urges that will need to be satisfied—but those relationships will likely be only carnal in nature. You'll feel empty and hollow if you're separated from Derek for too long because he's the one you—or, more precisely, your wolf—wants to be with... probably for life."


	16. Revelations

“Shit. _Shit._ SHIT!” Derek exclaimed.

Cora stared at him. “Will you calm down?”

“How can I calm down?” he demanded in a tone louder than entirely necessary, and because it was directed at his sister, he immediately regretted it.

If she noticed or cared, she didn’t show it. “What is the problem?”

“Dean… he… he _hit_ on me,” he told her.

She shrugged. “And? You’re a good-looking guy, and though he’s way too old for me, that aside, I wouldn’t kick him out of bed… unless he wanted to do it on the floor.”

“Ugh,” Derek grimaced. “I want to claw out my eyes now to get rid of that image.”

She smiled and repeated the question. “So what, exactly, is the problem? You got hit on by a hot guy. Don’t tell me your sexuality is threatened.”

“Not threatened, exactly,” Derek told her, his eyes fixed squarely on the floor.

“Then what?” she urged.

He looked up to meet her gaze. “I liked it.”

“And?” she asked, nonplussed.

He stared at her incredulously. “What do you mean _And?_ ”

“Exactly what it sounds like. For the third and final time, what is the problem?”

He couldn’t hide his expression of disbelief. “I’m not attracted to guys, and now I am... at least to one in particular. Kind of a big deal, and kind of the problem, since I don’t understand it.”

“Beta mating,” she said calmly.

“What?” he asked as though she’d grown another head, clearly unfamiliar with the terminology.

She was confused by his reaction. “Beta mating. Former Alphas of the same sex having a relationship based on shared experience that goes from friendship to mating.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Derek confessed.

Cora folded her arms and stared at him. “You mean Mom never told you?”

“Told me what?”

“Dad,” she said simply.

He shook his head. “What about him?”

“About his mate.”

“Mom,” he said.

Cora shook her head. “Not Mom. Harold.”

Derek looked like he’d been hit with a sledgehammer. “Can you start at the beginning, because I’m completely lost?”

“Dad was the Alpha of another pack when he and Mom met. You knew that, right?” she asked.

Derek nodded noncommittally. “I think I knew that, but he wasn’t when we were born. He gave it up to join Mom and her pack. His eyes were gold for as long as I remember.”

“Right. And you remember Harold, right?”

Derek nodded, a bit more certain this time. “Yeah, Harold Howard. I remember because I thought the name was horrible. He was Dad’s best friend.”

“Hal was that and more,” Cora explained. “He was Dad’s mate as well. Do you remember his eyes?”

Derek answered confidently. “Gold. What of it?”

“Not always. Harold was an Alpha once. He lost it by saving Dad’s life—the same way you did for me,” she told him. “It wasn’t long after that they got together.”

He shook his head. “Why did no one ever mention this?”

“The rest of the pack knew. It was such a natural part of the order of everything that it never occurred to them to mention it, I suppose,” she speculated.

“I’m older than you,” Derek said, pointing out the obvious. “Why did you know this but I didn’t?”

She seemed to blush at that. “Um, because I walked in on them.”

Derek opened his mouth to say something, but he shut it, failing to find the right words.

“Not doing anything, _per se_ , but they were naked in the bed. Dad was in the middle. Mom and Hal were on either side of him. They saw me and Mom got up to explain it all. I remember looking at Dad and Hal and understanding, even then, that they loved one another—just as much as Mom and Dad, if not more so.”

Derek listened in awe. “Why didn’t _you_ tell me?”

“Honestly? I thought you already knew,” she admitted. “It wasn’t some taboo subject, so it really never occurred to me.”

He let out an exasperated sigh. “How does this help me? None of this explains why I’m attracted to a guy for the first time in my life.”

Cora proceeded to explain Beta mating to her brother, who was perplexed why he had never heard of such a thing.

“That doesn’t really make sense. Dean was never an Alpha,” Derek protested.

Cora openly laughed. “Are you kidding? He may have only recently become a wolf, but in the short time since he awoke, even I can tell that everything about him screams Alpha male.”

“So now I’m doomed to be in love with a straight Hunter, of all things, when there’s absolutely zero chance of him returning those affections?” Derek demanded. “Great. Fantastic. Because my track record with women was so stellar that now I’m going to have disastrous relationships with both sexes.”

Cora’s expression was one of disbelief. “Why do you say that?”

“Well, let’s recap. There’s Paige, who I killed. Then there’s Kate, who murdered almost our entire family. There’s Jennifer, the Darach who sacrificed innocents for power….”

She shook her head. “Not that. I mean, why do you think he wouldn’t return those feelings?”

“He’s _straight_ ,” he emphasized.

His sister shrugged. “So are you. What’s your point? The heart wants what it wants and it doesn’t care about labels.”

Derek roared in frustration... again. “Fine. My heart wants him. That doesn’t exactly help with the fact that his could care less.”

“From what Mom told me, Beta mates are drawn to one another. I don’t think the attraction is ever one-sided in that situation.”

Derek shook his head in disbelief. “He doesn’t think about me like that. Why would he?”

The corners of Cora’s mouth upturned into a wry smile. “You’re kidding, right? And are you sure he isn’t starting to think about you like that? You’re different around him than everyone else… and it seems like he’s different around you as well.”

Derek shook his head still again. “Even if I believed any of this, now is hardly the time.”

“I can think of no better time,” she told her brother, walking over to embrace him. While she wrapped her arms around him, she grabbed the phone from his pocket. Turning the speaker volume to completely off as to not be heard, she quickly pulled up the call history and dialed the number. She waited a few moments, and as soon as heard what she thought was the sound of the call being answered, she pulled back and looked at Derek. “You just have to admit it to yourself. Say it, so you’ll start believing it.”

Derek smiled at his kid sister, a response few outside of Cora could elicit. “I think I’m in love with Dean Winchester.”


	17. Uncomfortable Silences

“Parrish is way too much of a Boy Scout to be a good liar,” the Sheriff told his son and the two women. “I put out an APB on your Jeep and followed you here. None of your friends were in the hospital anymore, so I figured you were onto something.”

Stiles wasn’t shocked that his father was keeping tabs on him. Hell, after everything, he expected it. His reaction to the news about Stiles’ mother was the surprise. “Does any of this make any sense to you?” Stiles finally asked.

“Yes and no,” he answered. “Your mother kept to herself a lot before she and I were married. She was full of secrets, and those secrets drove a wedge between us. While we were separated, I heard that she had hooked up with some guy who was passing through. I confronted her about it, and she didn’t deny it. Somehow, though, we managed to patch things up and got back together.”

Lydia and Melissa listened quietly. Patience, however, was something Stiles was now sorely lacking, even more than usual. “I was born in early April. You guys were married in mid-July. How long were you apart?”

“I proposed in July the year before. We set the date for a year later and made all of the wedding arrangements. That’s why no one knew we had gone through a rough patch—we never cancelled the church or anything. I’m not entirely sure why,” he admitted. “Optimism, I guess.”

Stiles was getting more restless. “When did you split?”

“We separated in September and got back together in October, but then she broke up with me a few weeks later. I guess that’s when she learned of her condition. We tried working things out, but she left to go see her parents in December—in retrospect, I see now that it was to hide the pregnancy. She didn’t come back until almost the first of July.”

Lydia finally spoke up. “Did she have any baby weight when she came back?”

“No,” the Sheriff said, shaking his head to reiterate. “When she came back, she seemed different—more dedicated to our relationship and making it work. I was too happy to question it.”

Stiles was dumbstruck. “I can’t believe she never told us.”

His father walked over and embraced him tightly. “I can’t either, son, but whatever she did before she and I were married doesn’t change how wonderful a wife and mother she was after. Am I happy she kept this from me? Absolutely not, and I fully intend on following up on this later, but I can be mad at her later. I don’t want this affecting your opinion of her.”

“It doesn’t. She stayed for me,” Stiles assured him. “I just wish I understood it all.”

Melissa smiled at the display, but the banshee was focused on something else. “Did Mrs. Stilinski ever mention Talia Hale?”

“No,” the Sheriff replied, taken aback, obviously the first he was hearing of it. They explained the book and the letter in detail. Once they had, he stood there slack-jawed. “I’m beginning to wonder if I knew my wife at all. I certainly didn’t when I married her.”

It was Melissa’s turn. With a sympathetic smile, she placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “You know she loved you and your son together. That’s the most important thing.”

Sheriff Stilinski nodded weakly. Stiles, meanwhile, had another question. “If she knew Talia, do you think she knew about werewolves?”

No one had an answer for that.

 

When they left the clinic, Dean didn’t say anything. The muffled voices and distant tones suggested it was a butt-dial. He did, however, hear one thing clearly. Sam watched him questioningly. “What is it?” he asked his older brother.

“Derek just said he thinks he’s in love with me,” Dean said after ending the call.

Sam held up his hands as if to say _what are you doing?_ “So you hang up on him?”

Dean shook his head. “He wasn’t talking to me. I overheard it. I’m sure he didn’t know I was listening.”

“Well, clearly the freak-out wasn’t because he wasn’t interested,” the younger Winchester pointed out.

Dean glared at him. “How can you be so calm about this?”

“Well, for starters, I’m not the one in an experimental phase right now,” Sam smiled.

Dean glared at him harder.

“Secondly,” Sam continued, “you should have seen your face just now. You smiled when he said he loved you—like genuinely smiled. You don’t do that often, and I’m glad to see it. If just the thought of you and him together is enough to do that, I can’t imagine what you two actually together would do for you or McBroody. For what it’s worth, you guys have my full support.”

Dean truly didn’t know what to say to that. Finally, his blank expression gave way to his patented smirk. “Well, at least if I’m going to have to figure out a completely new kind of relationship, it’s with a hot guy rather than a baby.”

Sam laughed. “God that movie was horrible.”

“I know, right?” Dean wondered. “I mean, sparkling vampires? What the Hell?”

Sam smiled. His brother was taking this far better than expected. “Hot guy, huh?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Of course. If I’m going to switch teams for someone, it might as well be the star player.”

Sam shook his head. “So now what?”

“So now I guess I talk to him. I didn’t want to say anything before, but I can’t get him off of my damned mind. I need to get a handle on this before we fight a homicidal Alpha pack so I don’t get someone killed.”

Sam nodded, climbing into the passenger seat. “Probably a good plan.”

Dean cranked the ignition, and the Impala roared to life on its way to Derek’s loft. It was only a few moments later that the Sheriff’s patrol car and Stiles’ jeep pulled up.

 

“I still cannot believe you did that!” Derek growled at his sister. He fixed his gaze upon his cell phone, and he just stared at it without touching as though it were some level 5 hot virus.

Cora rolled her eyes. “Can you get over it already? You’ve been harping on that for an hour now.”

“You had no right!”

She yawned dismissively. “And you had no balls. You weren’t going to say it to him without help… so I helped.”

“But we don’t know that he’ll feel the same way. Hitting on me isn't the same as having feelings for me, particularly life-long relationship-type feelings. Then what?” Derek demanded. “You’re the one that pointed out what happened to Hal after Dad died. He grieved himself to death. What if that happens to me? What if I wither away to nothing because he doesn’t want me in his life permanently?”

Cora smiled. “You won’t, because he does.”

“How can you be so sure?” he shouted.

Without breaking her smile, she pointed behind him… to where Sam and Dean were standing at the door. “Oh,” was all he could manage.

“Hey,” Dean grunted monosyllabically.

Everyone stood there in an awkward silence. Finally, Sam cleared his throat. “So, Cora? South America, huh? Want to tell me about it?”

Instantly catching his drift, she nodded. Grabbing her jacket, she called out over her shoulder, “You kids have fun.”

Shutting the door behind them, the siblings left Derek and Dean alone… still awkwardly silent.

“So,” Derek finally stammered.

“So,” Dean muttered, staring at the floor.

And the awkward silence continued.

Derek finally worked up the courage to continue. “There’s this thing that happens called Beta mating,” began, his voice cracking at the end.

“Deaton told me,” Dean said, scarcely louder than the Pureblood.

Silence.

“I don’t know what to say or do here,” Dean eventually admitted. “Everything about this is new for me.”

Derek nodded clumsily. “Same here.”

More silence.

Derek opened his mouth to speak, but he quickly closed it. Finally, trying to find his words, he sucked in a deep breath. “Maybe we should take some time to get to know each other better in light of this new information. The time we shared in Mexico….”

The words were cut off when Dean grabbed him by the shirt, pulled him close, and kissed him—shoving his tongue down his throat. Finally releasing the younger werewolf, the Hunter pulled back, satisfied. “Not the first time I’ve had to cut a conversation short that way. Listen, I don’t have a clue about any of this, but every fiber of my being is demanding that I find out, so I intend to. Whatever we need to do so you….”

“No more words,” Derek smiled, cutting him off and grabbing the Hunter by the collar and pulling him into a kiss of his own.


	18. Wake-Up Call

Stiles was the first one into the clinic, practically bursting the door from its hinges. “Okay, what was the deal between my mother and Talia Hale?” he demanded.

Deaton just stared at him incredulously. “Excuse me?”

“Answer the question!” Stiles shouted.

Alan’s brow furrowed into a scowl. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Stiles,” he began.

Stiles slammed his hands down onto the exam table. “That’s bullshit.”

“You need to calm down and tell me what this is about,” the veterinarian began, but by this time, Lydia, Sheriff Stilinski, and Melissa McCall were only a few feet behind him.

“Stop lying to me!” Stiles yelled. “You were Talia’s Emissary. You would have known who she hung around with—especially someone close enough to give an inscribed book to when they got pregnant with their first child, who, coincidentally, _WASN’T ME!_ ”

The druid shook his head. “What are you…?” he began.

“Answer the questions, Doc,” the Sheriff said. “Because I’d like to hear the answers myself. It seems I didn’t know my wife’s life before me that well—to the tune of her friendship with the local werewolf Alpha and a kid.”

Deaton stopped what he was doing, sighed, and nodded. “I knew this day would come. I had to wait until Stiles came to me, though. It was a promise I made to Claudia.”

“So you did know her,” Sheriff Stilinski said, the harshness in his tone hard to miss.

Alan nodded, gathering several containers of herbs and a mortar and pestle, working on some concoction as he spoke. “I did, but there’s a distinction we should make clear now. I became Talia’s Emissary after another stepped down… your mother.”

“Mom? Mom was an Emissary?” Stiles asked in disbelief.

Deaton smiled, gathering one container after the next and setting them on the examination table until it looked like the produce and herb section of some occult grocery store. “Your mother was in her thirties before she married your father. She had a life before him and you—a life she left behind when they were wed.”

“So why all the secrecy?” Stiles asked in frustration, shaking his head in confusion. “Why would …?”

Alan started grinding the herbs he had started with. “The capacity to become an Emissary is as in-born as Pureblood werewolves. It passes along familial lines, from one generation to the next. She was the most gifted druid I have ever known. The elders of our order were very interested in finding out if her child would be similarly capable,” he explained. “But it was a question she had no intention of them learning the answer to. The life of an Emissary is as fraught with danger as that of the werewolves they serve. It was a life that she did not want for her children. She left the order and never looked back.”

“Are you saying I might be able to do for Scott and the others what she did? What you do?” he asked.

Deaton nodded. “There is no might. Think back to our earliest dealings after you learned the truth. The rings of mountain ash and the like. There was a reason aside from your lack of werewolf nature that I chose you. It was a test.”

Sheriff Stilinski protested. “How dare you! How could you put my son at risk like that? His mother tried to shield him from all this. You had no right to drag him into it.”

“Whether with a keen intellect, a baseball bat, or sheer devotion, your son has been guiding and protecting the pack just as faithfully as I. He was drawn into this life without my intervention,” Deaton assured him. “I am merely trying to give him the tools to survive and do what he would have done already.”

The Sheriff started to argue further, but Stiles looked at him. He shook his head. “He’s right. I’m not letting my friends die because I’m too scared to do something. It’s just not in me not to help,” he said, his mouth turning into a gentle smile. “A trait that I didn’t inherit just from Mom.”

His father wanted to say something, but Melissa placed a hand upon his shoulder. “If it wasn’t for Stiles, my son would have died countless times over. The reverse is just as true. Whatever else comes, they’re going to be there for one another because they have the purest hearts I’ve ever known. As a mother, I assure you that Claudia could have asked for nothing greater for him.”

“Which is why Stiles has been Scott’s Emissary from day one,” Marin Morrell explained, walking in to join her brother. “In everything but name. It’s time that changed. Claudia was Talia’s Emissary. Alan was Laura’s. It’s time to pass the mantle.”

Stiles shook his head in protest. “You’re not abandoning us, are you? There’s still so much you can teach—so much I have to learn before I can do this right. Scott needs you… I need you.”

Lydia’s gaze had been transfixed, her ears listening to sounds that only she could hear. Her unusual quietness had gone unnoticed during the exchange. “Not abandoning,” she uttered….

… Just as the window crashed. A handicapped parking sign had been ripped from the ground and thrown through—where it impaled Deaton from behind. He tried to speak, but coughing and bloody sputtering were all that came out. The light in his eyes quickly vanished, and he fell lifelessly to the ground, eliciting a scream from Melissa. Morrell, however, seemed unsurprised by this turn of events.

While everyone was stunned into inaction, the female Emissary grabbed a handful of mountain ash, throwing it into the air where it landed in a perfect circle… just in time for Deucalion to enter. “All these Emissaries and a banshee. I tell you, getting the drop on you took some serious effort on my part, but I can see that his all been worth it,” Deucalion smirked. “One down, three to go.”

“Stay away from my son!” the Sheriff shouted, drawing the pistol in his boot—the one loaded with silver rounds. When he did, his foot broke the boundary of the mountain ash.

Morrell outstretched a panicked hand. “No!   Stay inside!” she warned, but it was too late. The Alpha grabbed Sheriff Stilinski’s gun and tossed him across the room, where he landed with a sickening thud.

“Dad!” Stiles screamed, trying to move towards his father, only to be restrained by Lydia and Scott’s mother.

The Emissary stared at Deucalion defiantly. “You might as well leave. You’re not strong enough to break through the barrier.”

“Not yet,” the Alpha smiled, pointing the gun at Stiles and pulling the trigger.   “But soon.”

Marin managed to step in front of Stiles just in time. The bullet hit her squarely in the chest. Stiles tried to cradle her as she slid down, but it was a clumsy effort. Her hand overturned the mortar Deaton had been working on, spilling its contents onto the ground.

“A different order than I had intended, but I can afford to be flexible,” Deucalion smiled, pointing at Stiles again.

Marin grabbed a handful of the dust and blew it into Stiles’ face. “Awaken,” she said with a smile before death claimed her. Unceremoniously, Stiles pushed her body away from him as the Alpha fired. He grabbed a handful of herbs from two containers, threw them into the air, and the cloud they formed crackled. The bullet was halted harmlessly.

Everyone in the room looked shocked… especially Stiles. “How?” Deucalion demanded.

“A protection mixture Deaton had on hand with a little Edelweiss to beef it up a bit for your new Call of Duty tactics,” Stiles said, unsure where the knowledge had come from, but secure in it, he feigned a voice of authority.

The Alpha cast the gun away as skin darkened into his Demon-Wolf form. “Let’s see how well it protects your father!” he growled, turning towards the staggered Sheriff Stilinski with fangs and claws out.

Stiles moved quick, grabbing another handful of the Edelweiss along with four other herbs. He threw them at his father… who vanished!

Deucalion roared, spinning back towards the new Emissary. Stiles just sneered at him. “Amaranth, Chicory, Heliotrope, and, oh, what was that last thing?” he smirked.   “Oh, yeah—Wolf’s Bane. Your werewolf senses won’t help you find shit now!”

As if to emphasize his point, Sheriff Stilinski reappeared inside the circle—gun in hand.

The Alpha roared with laughter. “I guess I’ll just have to huff and puff and blow… on second thought.”

The Sheriff fired, but Deucalion was too fast. He disappeared to the front of the clinic. They all stood there, unsure of what to do. Melissa’s expression betrayed her panic, though. “Is that smoke I smell?”

The others soon smelled it, too. It wasn’t long before they could see the source. Tendrils of flame were creeping towards them through the hallway. “We can’t go out there,” Lydia said. “He could be waiting for us!”

While everyone panicked, Stiles was having another moment of clarity. He grabbed hazel twigs and dipped them in ash, making a mark at each of the cardinal direction points. He grabbed the mortar and pestle next to Ms. Morrell’s body and set it on the table. Grabbing handfuls of broom, bladderwrack, and saffron, he quickly ground them into a powder. Adding holly, hazel, and mountain mahogany, he was done in seconds. He threw the mixture into the air as he had seen the dead Emissaries do with mountain ash on more than one occasion. Instead of descending to the ground, though, it hung in the air even more than the Edelweiss concoction had. Clouds quickly formed overhead, and the water began to fall. A storm grew in unbridled intensity outside, blowing wind and rain in through the windows with hurricane force. In moments, the fires were extinguished and the entire clinic was wet.

“How did you do that?” his father asked.

Stiles shook his head. “No time for explanations. We need to get the others here— _right now_ —where I have the supplies I need to help. Deucalion alone wasn’t a test or a demonstration of his power… it was a distraction. The Alphas are attacking _… tonight._ ”


	19. Born Again

Dean could barely tear himself away from Derek’s mouth long enough to breathe, yet somehow, he managed to pull the Pureblood’s shirt off. When he did, he just had to stop and stare, his breath hitching in his throat. The former Alpha was gorgeous. The Hunter had admired the muscled physique before, but this was different. There was a whole different appreciation now, since his change. A week ago, if someone had told Dean Winchester he was going to be making out with a guy, he would have laughed in their face. If they had told him how much he was enjoying it—how much he needed it—how right it felt—he would have thought they were clinically insane. Right now, though, none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was the man tugging on his clothes.

When Dean pulled away, Derek initially thought something was wrong. It wasn’t until he saw how the Hunter was looking at him that he realized just how _right_ things were. Derek was all too happy to start shedding layers of clothing, but he wasn’t happy that Dean wasn’t half-naked as well. It was a problem he was fully intent on solving. It took every ounce of restraint he possessed not to shred fabric with his claws. Barely in control, the veteran werewolf tugged at the Winchester’s over-shirt, finally freeing his arms and tossing it to the floor. He stretched the undershirt up and over the Hunter’s head, pushing him against the wall and moving his mouth from where it nibbled on Dean’s ear, traced his jawline, kissed his Adam’s apple, and licked an outline of the tattoo that warded him against possession.

Dean spun Derek around, pulling one of the former Alpha’s legs up against his hip. He run his hand underneath Derek’s thigh, bringing it to rest under a firm ass-cheek and he tilted his head and bit at the younger man’s nipple. For his part, Derek tore open Dean’s fly and shoved his own hands down the back of the older man’s jeans, squeezing the butt beneath the denim.

The door to the loft slid open, and Sam and Cora rushed inside. “Dean, we have to go!” Sam blurted out before realizing the state that his brother and Derek were in. He turned his head and cringed, his face contorting into a painful grimace. “Ugh, I thought it was bad when I walked in on you with the twins.”

“I thought you were Mr. Supportive,” Dean grinned at his brother. “Not going all judgmental on me now, are you?”

Sam glared at him. “Hardly. I don’t care who you’re sleeping with. I just don’t want to watch it—guy or girl.”

“What’s happening?” Derek asked his sister, pulling on his shirt.

Cora scooped up a shoe and handed it to him, but when he blushed, she caught his unspoken message and passed it to the Hunter instead. “Deucalion just attacked Stiles, Lydia, and the parents the clinic.”

“Is everyone okay?” Derek questioned, his panic evident.

His sister shook her head. “Deaton and Morrell are dead.”

“What about Stiles and the others?” he demanded.

Sam interjected. “They’re fine. Apparently, Stiles was able to stop him from killing the others—not to mention himself.”

Derek halted what he was doing. “ _Stiles?_ ” he asked for clarification.

Cora nodded in agreement. “From the sounds of things, he’s the new Emissary.”

“ _Stiles?_ ” Derek repeated.

 

Both sets of siblings rode to the veterinary clinic in the Impala, with Sam finding himself regulated to the backseat. Cora, for her part, seemed perfectly content to smile as Dean and Derek stole glances at one another. “So, you seem to care about this Stiles kid,” Dean commented off-handedly as he drove.

“Jealous?” Derek grinned.

Dean snorted. “Of course not… okay, maybe.”

It was an unnecessary question with an even more unnecessary answer. Everyone in the vehicle could tell he was. Derek was quick to put him at ease. “Stiles is an infuriating, spastic, wise-cracking pain in my ass.”

“So you _do_ care about him?” Dean chuckled.

Derek found himself smiling awkwardly. “Yeah. I hate to admit it, but I do. He’s saved this pack, and me personally, more times than I can count. He’s a good kid.” He looked over at the driver. “But he’s not you.”

Dean cocked an eyebrow in return. “No shit,” he smirked.

Sam and Cora could hardly suppress their eye rolls. Two people were dead, but this pair’s hormones were firing in overdrive to the point that such tragedy was taking a backseat.

When they pulled up outside the clinic, they found that they were the last to arrive, but only by a few moments, as they could see several of the others walking inside the fire-gutted and rain-drenched building.

Scott was kneeling next to Deaton, tears in his eyes. Kira’s hand was upon one shoulder, while his mother’s fingers ran through his hair. Everyone seemed at a loss for words. Finally, Dean was the one who spoke, though it was for a reprieve from the uncomfortable silence rather than lack of feeling. Clearly, the dead Emissary meant a great deal to the pack… _his_ pack, he forced himself to think, because though Derek had nothing to do with his making, he could no longer imagine a life without him. Besides which, he had no designs on descending into Omega madness. All werewolves were different in how long they could resist—be it Derek through strength of will or Jackson through sheer stubbornness—all would eventually succumb without a pack.

“Any idea how long we have?” he asked Lydia, since the banshee’s precognitive abilities seemed to be infallible where death was concerned.

She shook her head. “An hour? Maybe two?” she speculated. “The voices are too strong and muddled this close to death.”

Stiles looked at her with a grim expression and nodded. His new insight made many things far more clear—like if Lydia was hearing the voices now, at least one person in this room was about to die. He had been the pack’s Emissary for less than a night, and already he felt like he was failing them.

Sam, who had opened a duffel he had grabbed from the trunk, looked up and saw the teen’s face. He knew that expression because he’d worn it so often himself. He tried to change the subject. “So what were you guys doing here, anyway?”

The gambit worked. Stiles seemed momentarily distracted as he answered. “I came to get answers from Deaton about my mother. I obviously didn’t know anything about her being an Emissary, just that she was friends with Derek’s mother, Talia. Oh, and apparently she had some kid before me with some mystery guy that she gave up that neither Dad nor I knew a damned thing about.”

The Winchesters looked at one another. Dean had been pulling out silver rounds to distribute among himself, Sam, Argent, Sheriff Stilinksi, and Deputy Parrish. He stopped and went out to the car. Stiles caught the exchange and stared at Sam questioningly. When Dean came back with a weathered leather journal, he walked over.

“This is our father’s journal,” Dean explained. He opened it up to the relevant passage that Sam found days ago. “He passed through here years ago, and we think he had a kid. He mentions being with a woman he described as a Hunter, but if your Mom was an Emissary, he may have just assumed based on her knowledge and skills. Do these dates match up?”

Melissa and Lydia walked up to join him. The Sheriff wasn’t far behind. Stiles nodded. “Perfectly,” he finally voiced, cringing. “My mother slept with your father. Her cycle makes it almost guaranteed, and can I just say, all these newfound druid knowledge did nothing to prepare me for being able to figure out my mother’s menstrual cycle based on my own birthday just now.”

“99.78%,” Lydia confirmed. When people looked her, she simply shrugged.

The Sheriff looked at Danny. “Can you do your thing to break into the adoption records of the surrounding counties and see what you can find that corresponds to those dates?”

Danny simply nodded, Ethan looking on in support. He went outside and grabbed his laptop while the others waited. “I should be able to piggyback the Wi-Fi from the place down the street,” he said, rapidly depressing the keys in long, graceful strokes.

In the meantime, the other non-werewolves raided the Hunters’ arsenal for weapons. A few hushed whispers was the majority of what was said, at least until the hacker shouted, “GOT IT!”

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense, doc, is it a boy or girl?” Dean smirked, eliciting a smile from Stiles. Though the Emissary and the Hunters weren’t blood, they shared a sibling, which made them de facto family in the elder Winchester’s mind.

Danny chuckled. His mirth quickly faded. “One sec. Mrs. McCall, can you take a look at this?”

Melissa walked over and read over his shoulder. “That doesn’t make any sense?”

“What is it?” Sheriff Stilinksi demanded. “Can someone tell us what’s going on?”

Danny nodded. “There’s a convoluted paper trail in here because someone, presumably your wife, went to a great deal of trouble to cover something up. Based on what you guys told me, I’m guessing to hide the child—a boy—from her order.”

“A brother?” Dean smiled, looking at Sam. “We have another brother, Sammy.”

Danny was perplexed by what he saw. “The father is listed as John Winchester. The baby is listed as John Eric Winchester, Jr.”

“Why is the first we’re hearing of this?” Sam asked, confused. “If our father had another kid out there that actually listed him on the birth certificate, we should have heard about it before now. His military death benefits didn’t list anyone but Dean and me.” Adam was illegitimate, so that was no surprise, but this child was claimed?

Danny shook his head. “He never signed it. There’s a death certificate filed as well, so there the actual birth certificate was never processed it.”

“He’s dead?” Dean asked, crestfallen, and Derek was instantly at his side, hand resting on the small of the Hunter’s back as some reassuring gesture. The strangeness of it to those who knew Derek, and the peculiar acceptance of it to those who knew Dean, caught everyone’s attention.

Luckily, Danny wasn’t facing the display, or he might have gotten sidetracked. “No,” he said. “He’s not. That’s why I’m good at what I do. I can see where the case files and medical records have been doctored. The death certificate doesn’t match up with the data I hacked from the hospital. It’s not the same as the baby on the birth certificate.”

“How does this help us?” Stiles asked, exasperated. “Not knowing the dead kid’s identity doesn’t put us any closer to finding out what happened to him.”

Danny looked up from the screen. “That’s just it. We do know the dead kid’s identity.”

“He’s right,” Lydia corroborated, shocked, looking at the names and the birth dates. “Everything he founds confirms it. There’s not an adoption record for John Winchester, Jr., because the world believes he died shortly after he was born. The real dead child _was_ entered into the adoption system because his parents, too, were dead--Gordon and Margaret Miller. Date of birth is June 15, 1995.”

The hacker and the banshee seemed clued into something few others were, though Melissa McCall and Sheriff Stilinski soon joined them in the revelation.

“What am I not getting?” Sam asked.

A dumbstruck werewolf spoke up. “Gordon and Margaret Miller were my birth parents—or so I thought. That’s my birthday,” Jackson said.


	20. Hitting the Road

Sam and Dean sat in the Impala and waited, watching from a distance.  The others were attending the funerals of friends and loved ones they had lost, and it just didn’t feel right to be there with them… to intrude.  For Dean—and to some degree, Sam—these people were like family now.  Perhaps more, as they were pack, but until a little more than a week ago, they were strangers.  They were so young, and yet they had faced as much loss as the brothers had.  They were in pain, and they were grieving.  They were saying their goodbyes, and the Winchesters would have a chance to do that after.

 

**_A FEW DAYS BEFORE_ **

“No.  No fucking way,” Jackson quietly protested, tossing a disdainful look at Stiles’ direction.

Stiles, for his part, simply retaliated with an eye roll.  Everyone else just sort of stared in disbelief.  The de facto leader of the high school had tormented Stiles (and Scott) for years, and the cruel irony wasn’t lost on anyone.

Danny and Lydia, who knew Jackson best, could see the conflict in their friend’s eyes.  When Jackson saw their faces, what he saw as pity made him all the angrier.  “I am _not_ a Stilinksi!” he growled.

“No, you’re not,” the Sheriff said, and Jackson instantly felt his cheeks flush with shame.  He expected the man to lay into him for disrespecting him and his son.  “Claudia and I weren’t married when she had you, but that doesn’t matter.  If I had even the slightest inkling, you would have been a part of our family.  Despite the bravado, I can see that you’re not the spoiled rich kid you once pretended to be.  You’ve grown into a good man.  I would have been proud to have you as a son, and I wish you and Stiles had grown up knowing the truth.”

The man’s kindness, and the sudden pangs of guilt, nearly crippled him.  Here was a man he’d just insulted telling him that he wanted him.  He had more family than he’d ever hoped for, including Stiles.  The motor-mouthed dork was a pain in the ass, but he almost smiled thinking about it.  Wasn’t that what little brothers were supposed to be?  And wasn’t it his job, as a big brother, to protect him?  Instead, he’d made his life a living Hell.  Werewolf immunities be damned, Jackson was certain he was about to puke.

Old defense mechanisms rose to the surface.  “I don’t believe any of this.  I was still alive in her womb when my mother died.”

“No, you weren’t,” Stiles said calmly.  His newfound knowledge provided new insight as well.  “Margaret Miller’s child died with her.  There are ways to make the body seem alive to both human senses and technology.  I could do it with just what’s on hand, but it’s only an illusion.”

Danny nodded.  “He’s right, Jackson.  If anyone had access to both sets of records, it’s easy enough to see the switch.  It’s just that no one knew to look.”

Jackson wanted to lash out, but Danny was his best friend.  Even as upset as he was, he couldn’t bring himself to do that, so he turned his rage towards someone he had no qualms about attacking.  “Great,” he snarled.  “So my mother didn’t die before I was born.  She just didn’t want me.  That makes me feel so much better.”

“She wanted you to have a life without the drama and danger of her order, without werewolves and the supernatural potentially making every day your last.  She wanted you to have a life without her rather than no life with you,” Stiles said, the words of Deaton’s dream-speech in his head.

Jackson’s ire grew.  “She was willing to try for you.  Why not for me?”

“Besides she was married to a Deputy, she had made her point,” Stiles answered.  “She walked away and made it clear that would do whatever it took to keep her child safe.  She gave you up not because she didn’t want or love you, but so that you would have something she couldn’t give you at the time.  Your adoptive parents might not have been some TV family out of the 1950s, but you have to know that they love you.  They _chose_ to love you.”

Stiles wasn’t angry.  Not in the least.  He had a clarity that no one in the room could understand, and it gave him a perspective even he wasn’t prepared for.  “She didn’t know she was going to wind up with my Dad, but because of the choices she made to give you a better life, she had the courage to start a family with him.  It’s because of you that she took a chance with me.  She loved you so much that she couldn’t bear to lose you again, which made it possible for me.  I’m sorry for what you feel you lost, because you gave me everything.”

The words were like a bullet to Jackson’s heart.  He wanted to hate Stiles, to hate Stiles’— _their_ —mother, but everything he said made sense.  The words were sapping the fury, and Jackson wasn’t ready to give it up just yet.  He turned his wrath towards his other “brothers”.  “Whatever.  It’s not like my father wanted me.”

Dean started to say something to defense their Dad, but Sam shook his head.  He handed Dean their father’s journal instead.  “We never understood the notes until we started figuring out that he had another child besides us and Adam,” he began, opening the book, “but there are dozens of entries that are clear now.  He was trying to find you.  He respected your mother’s reasons for giving you up, but even as insane as our lives have been, he wanted you with him—with us.  From days after he learned of you until about ten years ago, you crossed his mind constantly.”

“For a decade, then he moved on,” Jackson spat.

The Winchesters didn’t lash out, because the boy had no way of knowing.  “Yeah, he did,” Sam said calmly.  Sam pointed at the last entry that now, in retrospect, was clearly about Jackson.  “This was the day before he left this book for us… and about a year before he died, saving my life.  There is nothing more important to us than family, and like it or not, that’s what you are.”

Jackson wanted to say something—anything—to make himself feel… well, he wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to feel.  That indecision robbed him of his words.  Dean walked up to him and placed a hand upon his shoulder.  “We’re not just pack, we’re family.  Now that we know that, you’re going to wish the Hell that we’d leave you alone,” he smiled.

Sam nodded in agreement, mirroring the expression with his own smile, and the tag team effect brought one out of Jackson as well.  The young werewolf’s eyes were wet with tears now, and he was at a loss for what to do now.  The same wasn’t true for his oldest brother, who pulled him into a hug.  Sam walked over to join them, his towering frame almost eclipsing Jackson’s as he wrapped his arms around both of his brothers, all but suffocating the youngest Winchester.

The rest of the pack had said and done nothing, too enrapt by the revelation and consumed by feelings of uncertainty and awkwardness to interject or intervene.  The tension relieved, though, no one was surprising when it was Scott who moved first.  He approached his best friend, placing a hand upon either shoulder and urging Stiles towards the three brothers.  Sam and Dean saw, releasing their hold on their youngest sibling.  Jackson and Stiles just stared at one another until Danny and Scott pushed them together.  The clung to one another for dear life, Jackson’s emotions flooding over him.  He grabbed the collar of Stiles’ shirt and tugged, not willing to let him go.  “I…,” he stammered, trying to find the words.

“I know,” Stiles’ snorted through tears far less foreign to him.  “Me, too.”

 

**_NOW_ **

The Hunters watched as the group slowly began to move from one grave to the next.  Jordan was the first to leave, walking over to join the Winchesters.  “Sad,” he said to them.  “He was a good man, but I have to wonder if, in some ways, it wasn’t easier to go out that way.  He’d lost a wife, a daughter, and a sister.”

Dean nodded.  “Chris was one of the best, but it doesn’t matter how good you are, the life eventually takes you.  With him, it just took everything else first,” he said mournfully.  He thought back to Lisa and Ben, and suddenly, he was awash of his regrets for making them forget him.  He couldn’t have lived with himself if they had paid the price for his choices.  They very nearly had already.  He almost smiled when he thought about one saving grace in all of that:  Not having to explain to Lisa why he suddenly was in love with someone else.  He still remembered his feelings for her, and they hadn’t diminished, but there was something entirely different—and infinitely stronger—with Derek.

The bemused smirk had crept upon his face, and he quickly pushed it aside.  It didn’t seem right to be, well, _happy_ having watched the older Hunter die in battle with one of Deucalion’s Alphas.  In typical fashion, though, he went out with a bang—literally—an atomized silver and wolf’s bane grenade.  He went out on his own terms, taking three of the murderous werewolves with him.

 

**_THEN_ **

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Stiles asked Scott.  “I mean, it’s not like I’ve done this before.”

The young Alpha just smiled and answered without hesitation.  “I trust you.”

Melissa looked worried.  “I trust you, too, but explain this to me again.”

“Sure,” Stiles said, understanding her concern… and sharing it.  “Scott, as a True Alpha, is stronger than a regular Alpha.  Even more than an Alpha is when compared to a Beta.”

The mother looked to Derek, the veteran Pureblood werewolf, to confirm what the new Emissary was saying.  He did so with a taciturn nod.  “If you have any doubts, remember that it’s why Deucalion’s coming for him.  He wants that power for himself.”

“But if you take that power from him, how will he be able to stand against Deucalion?” she asked, her voice hitching.  Sheriff Stilinski walked over and grabbed her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

Scott saved Stiles from having to answer.  “By strengthening the pack.  I can’t stand against that many Alphas.  I need them, and they need my power to stand with me.”

“It’s only temporary,” Stiles assured her.  “When it’s all said and done, I’ll stop the ritual, and the power will go back to him.  It’s his—pure and simple.  Nothing I can do will take it from him.”

_Unless he dies_.  It was an unspoken statement that ran through almost every mind in unison.

Scott nodded.  “Do it.”

 

**_NOW_ **

Scott had survived, but his grief was palpable.  It was hard to tell if he wanted to.  Dean’s hearing picked up the Alpha saying something to Kira’s parents, but he intentionally tried not to eavesdrop.  The elder Kitsune nodded stoically, while her husband thanked him with a few kind, if brief, words.  When they walked away, McCall started to crumble.  He probably would have, had Stiles not grabbed him.  They kept each other standing as they cried into one another’s arms, faces buried into each other’s shoulders.  They had both lost the women they loved, and all their parents could do was stand by and watch them mourn.

Lydia walked over to join Jordan.  She stepped into his personal space, and he wrapped her up in his embrace.  A dark suit, rather than a uniform, meant she didn’t have to worry about badges, gun belts, or anything else.  She just surrendered into his arms, trying not to wail as she felt the pain of the deaths of her girlfriends even more pointedly than she had in the moments before each died at the hands of an Alpha—each dying as they protected the men they loved.

 

**_THEN_ **

Stiles stood in the burned out clinic, winds starting to rise around him in response to the ritual he was enacting.  His hands and Scott’s were on one another’s forearms, where they had been for almost an hour.  Finally, the true Alpha opened his eyes, and the crimson light faded in exchange for the gold they had once possessed.  When they did, the eyes of the other werewolves glowed brighter, taking on a reddish hue.  Not truly Alpha, but not truly Beta either.

It had happened just in time.  Moments later, Deucalion and the Alphas arrived.  Claws and fangs sprouted everywhere, and the once blind megalomaniac seemed genuinely shocked by the fight that the teenagers were putting up.  It wasn’t until he saw Scott and Stiles that he understood.  He charged for the True Alpha, but there was another surprise in store.  When the fully lupine Derek pounced on him, the Demon-Wolf stunned for the moment, because he had expected a fight with a True Alpha, not an entire pack of near-Alphas, and certainly not one who had grown so strong that he was as strong as an Alpha on his own.

 

**_NOW_ **

Liam and Brett walked away in silence.  The once-rivals seemed strangely comforted by one another.  The loss of a pack member was a pain that both now understood.  They climbed into Liam’s stepfather’s SUV and left together.

Isaac, meanwhile, was saying goodbye to Cora.  Without her brother in Beacon Hills, she didn’t feel she had enough reason to stay, and Isaac, having been reunited with his brother, didn’t feel he could leave.  The two had never really become intimate, but there was a strange connection between them—a foundation for something stronger, but only in another time… another place.  A gentle smile and a chaste kiss marked the end of what might have been.

 

**_THEN_ **

Things were going badly.  Even bolstered by Scott’s power, the Alphas quickly gained the upper hand.  Each werewolf was squaring off against their own target, and each was making little headway.  Angel blades, Ruby’s knife, and an assortment of silver and wolf’s bane bullets kept the Winchesters safe, with Dean mixing it up with an occasional claw swipe, but they were veteran Hunters.  The teens weren’t faring nearly so well.

Ethan had been one of the first to fall.  He recklessly charged one of the Alphas, who grabbed him by the neck, snapping it just as the merged form he shared with his brother had been destroyed.  Danny, who had refused to stay safe, forgot everything the Hunters had taught him in that instant.  In blind rage, he fired at his boyfriend’s killer, managing to exact revenge by taking a life, but so consumed was he that he never noticed another Alpha approaching from behind.  The gentle hacker’s heart had always been one of his best features, and in a split second, it emerged from his chest, gripped by a werewolf’s claw.

 

**_NOW_ **

Jackson said goodbye to his best friend.  His parents said they understood why he couldn’t stay, but they didn’t really.  How could they?  The loss of Danny and the horrors he had experienced and committed as the Kanima still haunted him.  Beacon Hills wasn’t home anymore.  It never would be.  He walked over to Scott and nodded to the True Alpha.  “We’re even,” he smiled.

Scott straightened.  The pain he felt with Kira’s loss would be with him for a long while to come.  Jackson wasn’t.  He could tell it in his face.  There was no question in it.  Scott had never been Jackson’s Alpha and wouldn’t have felt comfortable telling him to stay anyway.  He simply shook his former rival’s hand.  “Even,” he nodded.  “You were here for us.  If you ever need us….”

“I’ll call,” Jackson finished.  He and Stiles just stared at one another for a moment.  Then the werewolf pulled the Emissary into a hug.

Stiles tried to choke back the tears.  “You sure you won’t stay?” He wasn’t Scott.  He wasn’t asking a Beta to stay.  He was asking a brother he wanted to get to know.

Jackson pulled back and shook his head.  “I can’t.  Not right now.  I’m not running away from you,” he assured his half-sibling.  “I have a chance to get to know a family, which includes you, but right now, you’re needed here.  Whenever you get time, though, come see us at the Bunker.”

“I will,” Stiles promised.  “Take care of yourself.”

 

**_THEN_ **

The tide had turned when the pack stopped fighting as lone wolves and fought as a pack.  Actually, all of them didn’t fight as a pack—they fought as a team.  Jackson, Isaac, Liam, and Brett set up a guard perimeter around Scott and Stiles, and as Alpha after Alpha tried to get to the pair, it was ironically lacrosse tactics that saved the day.  They could anticipate one another’s moves, and by setting each other up for “the shot”, they were able to kill one Alpha after the next.  It was after the first, though, that they realized how different things were.

Jackson’s teeth tore into the Alpha’s neck, and as he took to his feet, he looked up with a smile.  His eyes burned red—Alpha red.  When Deucalion had come the first time, he had killed Ennis.  Kali had killed the Super-Wolf.  Jennifer killed Kali.  Deucalion had walked away.  None of the Alphas had died at the hands of the pack, but now one had… and with it, came the power.

Scott’s boost to Jackson’s power flooded back to him.  His former co-captain no longer needed it.  In no time, the same was true for his first Beta, then Isaac, then Brett, then Cora.  Dean hadn’t realized it until he saw he youngest brother’s eyes, but then he understood.  Alpha after Alpha fell.  Betas became Alphas in their stead.  Before long, only Deucalion remained.  He tossed Derek aside and roared in frustration, lunging at Scott.  Still gripped in the ritual that still divested his power, he was helpless, but the Demon-Wolf’s claws didn’t find the True Alpha.  The Pureblood former Alpha had thrown himself in front of the killing blow.

 

**_NOW_ **

Jackson hugged Lydia tightly and told her goodbye.  “I’m ready,” he told Dean behind the wheel, clutching a simple backpack in his hand.  Tossing it into the trunk, he climbed into the backseat.  He looked over at Sam beside him.

“Let’s get going then,” his eldest brother said.  Jackson met the gaze in the rearview mirror.  Hazel-green eyes flashed red, and his former Alpha—now Alpha again after killing Deucalion—smiled in return.  An _actual_ smile.  This wasn’t the same Derek Hale whom he had once known, but then again, he wasn’t the same Jackson Whittemore… or, apparently, John Winchester.  Dean was now a werewolf, and an Alpha to boot, not to mention in love with the man sitting next to him.  Sam had a new brother to get to know.

As the highway stretched out before them, he smiled to himself.  It was going to be an interesting ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first tale in the story of the Winchesters--all three of them--and the beginning of Derek and Dean.
> 
> There's an entire road ahead for all of them, and a life that must continue on in Beacon Hills.
> 
> Those are two very different tales that I want to tell, among other stories floating around in my crazy brain.
> 
> Lots of death in this chapter, obviously. Most are canonically absent from Teen Wolf now--Danny and Ethan, Jackson, and apparently, for the most part, Derek as well. I thought all deserved a better send off--a fitting end or a better beginning. As for Kira and Malia, it's not that I have a problem with strong female characters. On the contrary, I love Lydia and for the most part, loved Allison as well. Malia and Kira are interesting, but some of those random thoughts in my head for our favorite pack involve new pairings, so sacrifices had to be made ;)
> 
> I think my writing improved along the way, and with any luck, it will only get better. Thank you so much for going on this journey with me, and I hope you will continue to do so.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing at writing a fanfic, and since I couldn't decide between Supernatural and Teen Wolf, I decided to combine the two. Along the way, it's began to develop a life of its own in my mind. If all goes well, it will be the first in an ongoing series I envision, where the Winchesters will be visiting the various fictitious supernatural communities across the U.S.
> 
> This story canonically takes place after Season 4 of Teen Wolf. More loosely, it takes place after Season 10 of Supernatural (as the season has not yet ended). I will try to keep it canon after I know how that ends.
> 
> I apologize now for my pacing (first attempts and all). I already realize I could have done better with the early chapters, but if I go back and try to change things now, I'm afraid I'll muck up the story through overanalyzing ways I could improve it. It's raw, but I'm going to leave it as is. I think (hope) I'll inevitably get better through continued writing. I welcome any feedback.


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